People who received an excessively high disability benefit due to errors at the UWV (Employee Insurance Agency) will not have to repay the difference. “I don’t want to create extra worries,” says outgoing Minister Eddy van Hijum (Social Affairs and Employment).
Almost a year ago, it became clear that the UWV was making widespread errors in the calculation of disability benefits. Since then, the cabinet has kept the option open to reclaim money from a small group of victims.
It concerned WIA (Work and Income according to Labour Capacity Act) recipients who received so much more money that they could have known that something was wrong. The size of this group is unknown. The UWV estimates that it concerns “a handful of people.”
Due to the threat of possible repayments, uncertainty among WIA beneficiaries has grown in the past eleven months. “We received many questions about this,” says a spokesperson for the National Client Council, which has had a WIA reporting center since 2021.
“The WIA is very opaque,” says the spokesperson. The reporting center even receives people who do not even know that they fall under the WIA, let alone whether they receive too much or too little. “Everyone who approached us has great concerns about what would happen to his or her benefit.”
UWV is already busy enough
The cabinet cites another reason not to reclaim money from WIA recipients: the recovery operation will then become “even more complex.” The UWV is likely to be busy until 2027 checking 43,000 files for errors. As a result, waiting times elsewhere in the organization are increasing further, because so much extra staff is not available.
The National Client Council has asked the ministry for support, as more difficult questions are coming in at the WIA reporting center. The minister wants to “start working on an independent reporting center in the short term.” According to the UWV, it is then “a logical choice” to continue with the National Client Council.
Victims who have received too low a benefit will receive money back. Van Hijum does not want this money to count as income. A higher income affects the amount of allowances, taxation and income support. The minister will announce how he wants to arrange this in the autumn.