Reduced Earnings Allowance and Retirement Allowance



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



Reduced Earnings Allowance (REA) can be paid on its own or 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 £67.88 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 £16.97 a week, whichever is the lower.