IB TO ESA - National Insurance Question

James wrote: Hallo this was to be a new post but is spot on target here.
I would take issue with the advice here as last week was talking to a DWP advisor about this very topic.
There seems to be a lot of confusion over questions like the initial poster asked.
All contributions paid by the State or a worker as NI contributions can only be used for Pensions she stated.
Not towards any other benefit like Contributory ESA.
It all depends she said on what the migrating claiment was doing "Two years prior to their going onto long term IB".
If working for those 2 years yes you would get Contributory ESA(dont know why that would be in light to the statement above) but if you were say ordinary unemployed.....then you would only be entitled to Income ESA only.
And if you had capital over £16,000 now you would not get any ESA UNLESS you were in the support group or unless you had worked the full 2 years prior to your IB claim.
You would not get Income ESA though IB was not means tested.

I have allowed your posts, but what you have stated is incorrect

In order to have originally claimed IB, a claimant would have needed to have met the NI Contribution requirements for IB, if they had not been working for some time previous to making a claim and did not meet the NIC requirement then they would have received Income Support due to Incapacity.

As the move from IB to ESA is counted as a transfer, there is no need for a claimant to re-qualify based on their NI Contribution history, if this was required, no one would be transferred to ESA(CB) at all.

I am afraid that you are also in error with regard the rules for Income Related ESA, the capital rule (£16,000) is an absolute, and is not dependant on whether you are in the Support Group or not, If you have savings and capital over £16,000 then you will not be eligible for any means tested benefit.

So to be clear, if you are on IB you will be transferred to ESA(CB).

With regard the confusion over pensions, there are two forms of NI contribution (small c), NI Contributions which can only be accrued through employment or registered Self-Employment. NI Contributions count towards the State Pension and eligibility for some benefits such as IB and ESA(CB).

The other form is NI Credits, NI Credits are paid when a claimant is receiving certain benefits such as IB, ESA(CB and ESA(IR), NI Credits only count towards a Full State pension and cannot (on their own) be used to qualify for a benefit such as IB or ESA(CB).

Gordon