Pension Is One of Two Disability Income Benefits from the VA
“Aid and Attendance” is a commonly used term for a little-known veterans’ disability income. The official title of this benefit is “Pension.” The reason for using Aid and Attendance to refer to Pension is that many veterans or their single surviving spouses can become eligible if they have a regular need for the aid and attendance of a caregiver or if they are housebound. Evidence of this need for care must be certified by the VA as a “rating.” With a rating, certain veterans or their surviving spouses can now qualify for Pension even if they have a high income that appears to be above the maximum allowable amount.

The Department of Veterans Affairs offers two disability income benefits for veterans who served on active duty.

The first of these benefits — Pension — is the subject of this website and is discussed briefly in a section above. The purpose of this benefit is to provide supplemental income to disabled or older veterans who have a low income OR have high medical expenses. Pension is for war veterans who have disabilities that are not connected to their active-duty service. If the veteran’s income exceeds the Pension amount, then there is no award. However, income can be adjusted for unreimbursed medical expenses, and this allows veterans with household incomes larger than the Pension amount to qualify for a monthly benefit. There is also an asset test to qualify for Pension.

The second disability income benefit is called “Compensation” and it is designed to award the veteran a certain amount of monthly income to compensate for potential loss of income in the private sector due to a disability, injury or illness incurred in the service. In order to receive Compensation, a veteran has to have evidence of a service-connected disability. Most veterans who are receiving this benefit were awarded an amount based on a percentage of disability shortly after they left the service. There is generally no income or asset test for most forms of Compensation, and the benefit is nontaxable.

We will devote little mention of Compensation benefits on this site. The application process is fairly clear and requires no additional knowledge to submit a claim. The majority of this site will be devoted to Pension since Pension fits very nicely with long term care costs.

There are also several death benefit variations of the two disability incomes for single surviving spouses or dependent minor children or adult dependent children. We will not discuss the death benefits related to service-connected disability but instead will discuss on this site only the Death Pension benefit.

Pension for Veterans and surviving spouses
Although the Veterans Administration does not differentiate between various Pension applicants, there are, in practice, three kinds of Pension applications.

The first type of application or claim, as it’s called by the VA, deals with veteran households that do not generally require the rating mentioned above in order to receive a benefit or as VA calls it, an award. These applicants will have household income less than the monthly allowable Pension rate. In addition, they will have very little in savings or investments. Also, with no ratings, the size of their Pension awards will be much smaller.

It is our opinion that most veterans or their surviving spouses, receiving Pension, are in this category. We believe this is true for several reasons. One reason is that Veterans Service Representatives in the local regional office, who deal with the public, will tell callers that Pension is only available to veteran households with low income. VSR’s turn away a lot of potential applicants. This is probably because these employees are not trained sufficiently to understand the special case of veterans with higher income and high long term care costs.

A second reason is that callers will be told — if they have significant savings or investments — they will not qualify. This is not the always the case. Arrangements can be made before application is made in order to receive an approval award. Veterans Service Representatives will not mention this as an option.

A third reason is that veterans with higher income and significant assets generally don’t know they can qualify for Pension under certain conditions. No one has ever told them. As a result, they never apply.

The table below examines this sizable group of potential beneficiaries. The Data for this table was taken from the 2007 Statistical Abstract of the United States for the most recent years of 2005.

What is surprising about these numbers is that a third of all people — 33% — in this country, over the age of 65, have a potential for receiving a Pension benefit.

That’s how many war veterans or their survivors there are in the US.

The potential for receiving a benefit is huge. But, in actuality, only 4.7% of this large population of potential beneficiaries was actually receiving a benefit in 2005. This is truly astounding and appalling!

If you feel you may be missing out on unclaimed financial reimbursement from the Department of Veterans Affairs, then contact us today or complete the “Do I Qualify” form.