Carer’s Allowance

Your basic State Pension is automatically protected if you claim Carer’s Allowance. You will also build up State Second Pension for each full tax year you are claiming Carer’s Allowance.

You may be able to get Carer’s Allowance if you regularly spend at least 35 hours a week caring for a severely disabled person. The disabled person must be receiving either the highest-rate or middle-rate care component of Disability Living Allowance, Attendance Allowance, or an Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit Constant Attendance Allowance or War Pensions Constant Attendance Allowance at the normal maximum rate or above. Not everyone who cares in this way can receive Carer’s Allowance. For example, if you receive certain other benefits (for example, bereavement benefits), you will get whichever benefit pays you the highest amount but you may still get a Carer’s Allowance National Insurance credit. We call this having an ‘underlying entitlement’. You cannot get Carer’s Allowance or have an underlying entitlement to it if you:

• earn more than £79 a week (in 2004/05) when you have taken off the money we allow for expenses;
• are in full-time education (21 hours or more each week of supervised study at a school, college, university and so on);
• are on holiday from full-time education; or
• have to keep to certain immigration controls.

• You may want to claim Carer’s Allowance if you feel that you qualify. However, you need to be aware that getting Carer’s Allowance can affect some benefits paid to you and the person you look after. You can find more information about Carer’s Allowance in our leaflet Caring for someone? (SD4). See the directory for details of how to get a copy of this leaflet.
• You will automatically receive a National Insurance credit for each week you receive Carer’s Allowance or have an underlying entitlement to it, unless you are a married woman or widow and have chosen to pay a reduced rate of National Insurance. These credits will help you build up basic State Pension. From 6 April 2002, if you get Carer’s Allowance (or have an underlying entitlement to it) for a full tax year, you will also build up State Second Pension. This means you will not need to do anything to make sure that the period during which you receive Carer’s Allowance, or have an underlying entitlement to it, counts towards your basic State Pension and additional State Pension.
• If you do not get Carer’s Allowance for every week of a tax year, but you do have caring responsibilities for all of that year, you may need to make a claim for Home Responsibilities Protection to protect your basic State Pension. This could be necessary, for example, if you are getting Child Benefit for a child aged under 16 for part of the tax year and caring for someone with a long-term illness or disability for the rest of the year. Or, for example, if someone else is getting Carer’s Allowance for the same person you are caring for, as you cannot both get this benefit. See Home Responsibilities Protection for more details about Home Responsibilities Protection, how to claim and the time limits that apply.