Reduced Earnings and Retirement Allowance

These benefits are only available to people who have had accidents that happened, or have diseases that started, before 1 October 1990.

Reduced Earnings Allowance (REA) can be paid on top of IIDB. If you do not get IIDB because your disablement is less than 14% you can still get REA as long as your disablement is assessed at 1% or more. If you have been receiving REA because you could not return to your regular occupation as a result of an accident at work or a prescribed industrial disease, you will continue to be entitled to it — the maximum rate is now £64.64 a week.

Retirement Allowance is a reduced rate of REA for people over pensionable age. It is awarded at a rate equivalent to 25% of the REA to which you were entitled on the day before you retired, or a retirement allowance of £16.16 a week, whichever is the lower.