We're going to talk today about DIC benefits for widows.
Hi, I'm Lori Underwood, an attorney at Woods and Woods.
As a spouse of a deceased veteran, you may be eligible for thousands of dollars of benefits
from the VA.
In order to qualify for these benefits though you need to prove that you are a spouse of
the veteran.
There are a number of different ways in which you can do that and that's what we want to
talk about right now.
A spouse is first in line for DIC benefits when it comes to the veteran's surviving family
members.
In order to be a qualifying spouse, you need to number one, either be married to the veteran
or number two, be in what is called a deemed valid marriage to the veteran.
What does deemed valid mean?
That is determined by common law marriage standards.
You may be wondering I don't live in a common law marriage state, so would I be eligible
for a deemed valid AKA common law marriage standard by the VA?
The answer to that is yes.
You do not have to live in a common law marriage state in order to have a deemed valid marriage
by the VA.
All you need to do, regardless of where you live, is be able to prove to the VA that you
had a valid marriage with the veteran, even if you did not undergo legal marriage proceedings.
Now even if you can satisfy the legal marriage requirement or the deemed valid marriage requirement,
we have some other requirements we're going to have to show the VA in order for you to
meet the eligibility as spousal benefits for DIC.
Now some of those additional requirements are one year of the valid marriage or the
deemed valid marriage, so you're going to have to be either married to the veteran for
a year or holding yourself out as married to the veteran for a year in that deemed valid
marriage.
The second requirement is that you had to have continuously lived or cohabitated with
the veteran for the length of your marriage.
Now there are some caveats to this rule, which we'll discuss in a few minutes, but that is
the second requirement, second additional requirement.
The third additional requirement is that you have not remarried to anyone else since the
death of the veteran.
A remarriage after the death of a veteran will generally be a bar to any DIC benefits
you may be eligible for.
Under certain circumstances, you may be able to prove an exception for the continuous cohabitation
rule.
A couple of those circumstances will be living apart for medical reasons, so for medical
reasons during your marriage, you and the veteran had to live apart with no intention
to desert each other.
Another example would be marital discord, where for certain reasons the widow and the
veteran may have not been able to get along at points in their marriage and they did not
live together.
It has to be shown that the widow was not materially at fault for this marital discord,
but that would also be an exception to the continuous cohabitation rule.
I do want to note that the monthly DIC benefit for a spouse can generally be increased to
compensate for a veteran's qualifying children, so while you may be as a spouse eligible for
a monthly benefit, which is statutorily set, you may be eligible for more if you have surviving
children of the veteran who are still dependent on you.
If you meet those requirements, that you're a spouse, you were valid in a valid marriage
with the veteran or a deemed valid marriage with the veteran, if you have been married
for at least a year prior to the veteran's death, if you continuously cohabitated with
the veteran and you have not remarried since the veteran's death, then you have a claim
for DIC.
That in a nutshell is DIC eligibility for widows.
If you have any questions about DIC claims or your eligibility as a widow of a veteran,
fill out the form on this screen or give us a call at Woods and Woods at the number below.