Mistakes with disability benefit date from 2006; Some 84,000 files under reassessment

The UWV has been making mistakes in calculating WIA disability benefits since 2006 and has known about the issues for at least two years, AD reports based on internal documents from the benefits agency. The UWV has to reassess 84,000 files and will start with almost 53,000 still-current WIA benefits.

Last week, the UWV announced a large-scale recovery operation for errors made in calculating WIA benefits - for people who are unable or less able to work due to a long illness or disability - in the period 2020 to 2024. But, according to internal documents in AD’s possession, the UWV has been making mistakes with the daily wage indexation for this benefit since its introduction in 2006.

Benefits follow the increases in the gross minimum wage. If the increase is not included when someone receives their first benefit, it will have consequences for the years to follow. An internal report acknowledges that people received less than they were entitled to for years.

The documents also showed that the UWV has been aware of this issue and that it’s been happening for nearly two decades, since at least 2022. In that year, the UWV’s legality department reported in an internal message: “Errors have been made with indexing since the start of the WIA.”

The UWV is preparing a recovery operation. An analysis showed that 84,000 files need to be examined. The benefits agency will start with 53,000 files of people who are still receiving WIA benefits. It will decide later whether the benefits of people who no longer receive WIA due to death or retirement, for example, also need to be corrected.

According to AD, the impact analysis of this debacle covers image damage, political consequences, and an increasing number of objection cases. There is even a brief consideration of keeping the whole thing quiet, but after “moral deliberation,” the agency concluded that a cover-up was impossible.

“If you are talking about trust in the government, this is yet another example of how not to do it,” Michiel Slot, who assists people in objection cases against the UWV and previously worked as a process supervisor at the benefits agency, told AD. “They mainly look at what suits the organization. But this concerns vulnerable people who do not know that they have received tool little money and for whom a few tens of euros could make a world of difference.”