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Family premium
New claimants can’t get family premium. You will only get the family premium if your claim was calculated before 1 May 2016 and you haven’t had a break in your claim. As soon as your Housing Benefit, Council Tax Support or Child Benefit ends, your family premium will end.
The family premium rate is £19.15 a week.
Disability premium
You might get a disability premium if you and your partner (if you have one) are both under 60 and either you or the partner is disabled or long term sick. You can’t get the premium if you are single and getting Employment and Support Allowance contribution based income, or if you are in a couple and the claimant is getting Employment and Support Allowance contribution based income..
To get the premium, at least one of the following conditions must apply to the disabled person:
- they get Disability Living Allowance (DLA)
- they get Personal Independence Payment (PIP) at any rate,
- they are in hospital but would get PIP if they were at home
- they get Armed Forces Independence Payment (AFIP)
Disability premium is £42.50 a week for a single person and £60.60 if you are one of a couple, whether one or both of you meet the conditions.
Disabled child premium
You get a disabled child premium for each dependent child living with you as a member of your family who meets at least one of the following conditions:
- is blind or registered blind, or has stopped being registered blind within the last 28 weeks
- gets Disability Living Allowance (DLA) care component or mobility component at any rate
- gets Personal Independence Payment (PIP) at any rate
- is in hospital but would get PIP if they were at home
Where a child spends time in different households, we will apply the premium to the adult whose household includes the child. A child can only belong to one household for benefit purposes.
If the child dies, you will get the premium until the child benefit stops being paid.
The disabled child premium rate is £80.01 a week.
Enhanced disability premium
You can get an enhanced disability premium as well as the disability or disabled child premium if the person (adult or child) gets one of the following benefits:
- the highest rate Disability Living Allowance (DLA) care component
- the enhanced daily living component of Personal Independence Payment (PIP)
- Armed Forces Independence Payment (AFIP)
- the support component of Employment Support Allowance (ESA), if the claimant is one of a couple
The enhanced disability premium rate is £32.20 a week for a child, £20.85 for a single person, and £29.75 if you are one of a couple. You get the couples’ rate whether one or both of you meet the conditions.
Severe disability premium
You may get a severe disability premium if you are single and you get one of the following benefits or if you are a couple and both get one of the benefits:
- the care component of Disability Living Allowance (DLA) at the middle or highest rate
- Attendance Allowance (AA)
- Personal Independence Payment (PIP) at any rate
- Armed Forces Independence Payment (AFIP)
You may also get a severe disability premium if you are part of a couple and your partner is registered blind, even if your partner does not get one of these benefits. In this situation you will get the single rate premium.
You can only get severe disability premium if you have no non-dependents (adults aged 18 or over) living with you - unless they also get a qualifying benefit or they are registered blind.
Whether you can get the premium also depends on whether you are being looked after by someone who gets Carer’s Allowance or the carer’s element of Universal Credit for you, or who would get either of these but doesn’t because of other benefits.
If you are a single person and you are looked after by someone in this situation, you can’t get severe disability premium.
If you are a couple and there are people in this situation looking after both you and your partner, you can’t get severe disability premium.
If you are a couple and one person is being looked after by someone in this situation, you can get the single rate premium.
If you are a couple and neither of you are being looked after by someone in this situation, you can get the couples’ rate premium.
The single rate of severe disability premium is £81.50 a week.
The couple’s rate is £163.00 a week.
Carer’s premium
You will get a carer’s premium if either you or your partner get Carer’s Allowance or the carer’s element of Universal Credit (or are entitled to it but don’t get it because of other benefits).
The premium goes to the carer not the person cared for.
If you claim Carer’s Allowance, the person you care for will not qualify for severe disability premium unless they are one of a couple who both qualify and the other person is not being cared for by someone one claiming Carer’s Allowance.
If the person you care for dies, carer’s premium will continue for 8 weeks. The 8 weeks starts on the Sunday following the death or from the date of the death, if it’s a Sunday.
If the entitlement to Carer’s Allowance ends for any other reason, the premium continues for 8 weeks.
The carer’s premium rate is £45.60 a week.