As the widow of a veteran or a qualifying family member of a veteran, you may have questions
about how to get DIC benefits.
Hi, I'm Lori Underwood an attorney with Woods and Woods.
There are several different rules that the VA has established regarding eligibility for
DIC.
I'm going to talk about four rules, three of them pretty quickly.
There's a five-year rule, a 10-year rule, and a one-year rule.
The 10-year rule establishes that any veteran who was entitled to a totally disabling service
connected condition continuously ten years before their death will be eligible for DIC
benefits.
That means the veteran was receiving 100% service connection for a disabling condition
10 years before their death.
When I say the veteran is eligible for DIC benefits, that means you as the widow, is eligible
to receive that DIC compensation benefit.
The five year old is similar to the 10-year rule in that the veteran had to be service
connected for a totally disabling condition.
However, it only needs to be five years
if the veteran was service-connected immediately post discharge and was service-connected for
five years prior to death.
If the veteran meets that condition then DIC benefits are warranted.
We also have a one-year rule.
A one-year rule establishes that have a veteran was a prisoner of war, and was receiving a
totally disabling service-connected condition at least one year prior to death.
If your veteran meets that standard, then you're also eligible for DIC.
Those are three fast hard rules for eligibility to DIC, but I said there was a fourth we're
going to talk about and that's what I want to get into now, which is when a veteran's
death is resulting from a service-connected condition.
There's several different ways that you would have to go about proving this, and several
different standards that you would need to meet.
Number one, you need to show that a veteran service-connected condition is the principal
or primary cause of death.
That service-connected condition need to have contributed substantially and materially to
the veteran's cause of death.
DIC can also be awarded where it's shown that the veteran service connected condition was
an aggravator to the primary or contributory cause of death.
Maybe the cause of death was something that was not service-connected.
However, it would not have resulted in death had it not been aggravated for the veterans
service connected condition.
To better illustrate the aggravation point, I want to read a passage from the Veteran's
Benefits manual, which I think really explains this really well.
"The court has stated that death can be service-connected based on a non-service-connected
disability, if it can be shown that the non-service-connected disability was aggravated
to the degree that it contributed substantially or materially to the veteran's death,
combined to cause the veteran's death or aided assistance to the death."
Note, in order to meet this requirement, the court further explained that an unbroken chain
between a service-connected disability and the condition that caused the veteran's death
must be present.
For example, a veteran's cause of death was cirrhosis, which was not service-connected.
His service-connected condition was PTSD.
DIC can be awarded where it was shown that the veteran's service-connected PTSD, aggravated
his non-service-connected alcoholism, which resulted in cirrhosis and caused his death.
At this point you may be thinking, my spouse wasn't service-connected for anything, so
I'm out of luck on DIC benefits and that is not correct.
Your spouse did not have to be service-connected for any conditions at the time of death in
order to make you eligible for DIC benefits, you can still win this claim.
If your spouse was not service-connected at the time of death, there are two things you're
going to have to prove to the VA in order to make you eligible for DIC benefits.
The first thing you're going to have to do is prove the service-connection of the condition
that resulted in the veteran's death.
This can be done posthumously after you show that condition was service-connected, then
you're going to have to show the VA that that condition caused the veteran's death.
If the veteran dies in service, you are eligible for DIC benefits.
How do you get them?
Other than proving all of the things that we just mentioned, you need to file your claim
ASAP, and that is VA Form 21535.
Now there is no time limit to file for DIC benefits.
It can be done at anytime after a veteran's death.
But in order to preserve the earliest effective date, you need to get that application in
within one year of the veteran's death.
If you get the application in within one year then the acclaimed date will relate back to the
veteran's death.
If you do it at any point in time after the one year, then the date of your claim will
become the claim date.
There are a couple of exceptions to this rule.
If you applied for Social Security survivor's benefits on or after January first of 1957,
that should be deemed to be a claim for DIC.
Additionally, if you applied for death pension through the VA but not DIC, that should also
be considered a claim for DIC.
If you have any questions about your eligibility or how to win your DIC claim, please give
us a call at the number listed below.
or fill out the form on the screen.
Thanks.