After An Award Is Made...

[akwidow]

Simple question here -

DIC for service connection for cause of death is my recent award.

Can they (VA at any station) take that away from me because I file a cue or two on erroneous denials my late husband received when he was still alive?

[john999]

You know the VA can do anything, but I don't think it is probable. If you qualified for DIC I don't know how they could take that away. Did you get it for 10 years total disability or direct service connected death? To mess with your DIC the VA would have to show that your husband did not die for SC condition or that you were not married for 10 years to 100% vet. CUE's are very specific. They are based on errors that only involve the records and laws at the time of the CUE.

[LarryJ]

Simple question here -

DIC for service connection for cause of death is my recent award.

Can they (VA at any station) take that away from me because I file a cue or two on erroneous denials my late husband received when he was still alive?

No.

[Guest Vietnam Tanker]

I have to agree with Larry, my next door neighbor had a similar experience and she won out in the end. Unless they can prove that your mates death was not from service connected conditions, there is NO way you could loose DIC.

[Berta]

akwidow-

The VA would never getting away with attempting to mess with a DIC award.

They just make it as miserable as they can for the widow during the claims process.

They WILL mess around with any retro- my claim is example-

I was awarded in April at BVA but had to to contact VA Central, the Sec, and the OGC to get them to where they are now- authorizing my retro-

But still I wonder how a widow could file CUE claims on past decisions the veteran received with substitution as the claimant.If the widow never re-opened them.

There is a case I breezed through at CAVC which I think was Holt case and on this premise-if I find it I will post it here.

I filed CUE claims on decisions that came to me posthumously when I was the established claimant.They grew out of my husband's claims that I re-opened but I was by then the actual VA claimant due to his death-with full right to CUE the 2 decisions I received.

This is an excellent question -I need to try to find an answer for you and will post here whatever I find.

Edited January 18, 2010 by Berta

[Berta]

PS- with an award of Direct service connected death (as conpared to the other forms of DIC) the VA will award ancillary benefits too.

The ancillary benefits should be ohn a separate enclosure with the award but mine did not cover them all.

I have been trying to prepare a topic for the DIC forum on all of these ancillary benefits as what they fail to tell us about- we can easily never get.

It will take some time as I want to post the actual regs that warrant these benefits-

Home Loan Guarantee Cert-

REPS in some cases

Funeral burial expenses

CHAMPVA and Chap 35 DEA ( these are often already established awards for 100% P & T SC deceased veteran's survivors.)

I my case I immediately sent my award letter to the DEA people for them to refund about 6 thousand they owed me on my DEA due to my new CHap 35 eligibility dates as to the AO death award.The even have to change my daughter's DEA dates to a more favorable date as her DEA derives from my husband's AO death award.

Many survivors dont even know (and their reps sure dont) that a past DEA award can be altered for entitlement dates with a new Direct SC death award.

Accrued benefits are only payable for claims that were pending when the veteran died. If those claims are successful when the widow re opens them.

The 21-534 or an formal accrued claim must be filed within one year after death for these benefits to be awarded.

AO accrued claims however award ALL accrued- as I believe-whether the accrued claim was filed within one year or not-

But I will check that with NVLSP before I post details on the ancillary survivors benefits for direct SC deaths in the DIC forum.

[Berta]

I need to correct something I said-

Widows and widowers can now retain their DIC if they re marry after age 57 in certain circumstances.

This reg went into affect in Dec 2003. Like everything else the regs are convoluted on this and can be found within 38 CFR 3.55.

I knew a VA VSO years ago who was desparately trying to help a widow who had received DIC many year before this regulation, re married, sent the VA a copy of the marriage license-VA continued to send her the DIC in her new name- and then they hit her with a VERY large overpayment.as she was no longer eligible for DIC under the regs at that time.

I dont know how they made out on that one.

I would think their could be other cases where DIC was terminated by the VA-say another wife showed up that the veteran failed to divorce-who also applied for DIC after the VA had awarded it to the initial widow.

But I would think these types oF cases are few and far between.The survivor would have full appellate rights anyhow to challenge anything like this.