Three things widows (or widowers) need to do when their Veteran husband dies.

[broncovet]

Uninformed widows and family members can lose Veterans benefits if they dont know key things:  These apply to Veteran's family, regardless if the Veteran was a female or a male.  

1.  It may require an autoposy on your late husband to prove cause of death or you can miss out on DIC benefits.  This is because your husbands cause of death is critical to whether or not you get a much needed $3000  or so per month in DIC.  "If" your husband dies of a service connected condition and you can prove it with an autopsy, then you can get the money, but otherwise VA will assume he died of a non service connected condition and you will get zero.  Its pretty much too late after he is buried without a body exhumation, and nobody wants that.  

2.  If your husband had a pending claim or appeal you will miss out on everything UNLESS you file a "substitution of claimant", because his claims for benefits die with him UNLESS you file this documtent within a year.  If you wait, you miss out on all the VA benefits he deserved but VA delayed hoping he would die before benefits were awarded.  https://www.vba.va.gov/pubs/forms/VBA-21P-0847-ARE.pdf.  You may well be eligible for "accued" benefits, that is, compensation benefits your husband was entitled to, but did not get, at least some of the time due to many VA benefits denial or delays.   

3.  Since your late husband's (or wife, if your wife was a disabled Vet) disability checks will end upon death, you need to understand the above AND that you need to file for DIC.  

DIC is dependents indemnity compensation, and you can find out more here: https://www.va.gov/disability/dependency-indemnity-compensation/. It should pay you as much as $3400 per month, depending on the number of dependents, whether or not you need aid and attendance and other factors, explained below.   

https://www.va.gov/disability/survivor-dic-rates/

     You need to know how to do the above.  One way is to have a trusted friend who knows the above to help your spouse in her time of need.  At a minimum, the surviving spouse needs to know "who to talk to" for the above.  A VSO who is experienced in DIC may be able to help.  Not all VSO's understand DIC, unfortunately.  

     Not knowing about the above, can cost your widow hundreds of thousands of dollars and leave her in poverty.  

Im probably going to print this out, and put it in a folder with my life insurance for my wife, so she can follow these instructions.  

Edited May 25 by broncovet

[Tbird]

27 minutes ago, broncovet said:

1.  It may require an autoposy on your late husband to prove cause of death or you can miss out on DIC benefits.  This is because your husbands cause of death is critical to whether or not you get a much needed $3000  or so per month in DIC.  "If" your husband dies of a service connected condition and you can prove it with an autopsy, then you can get the money, but otherwise VA will assume he died of a non service connected condition and you will get zero.  Its pretty much too late after he is buried without a body exhumation, and nobody wants that.  

To clarify, that is husband or wife. Many women are veterans.

[relatively happy camper]

Not to hijack someone else's post.  I was just at the DIC site broncovet linked and am wondering if the VA would pay for a second spouse, if they remarried, after age 55?  They are 58 and receiving DIC now, marry another SC vet and that one dies - could the spouse receive a double DIC award?  Probably not but I'm fairly sure they can get a second award of Chap 35, so why not!

[broncovet]

Tbird...Yes, and I recognized this, and mentioned it but it may not have been included earlier.  My post (updated):

Quote

These apply to Veteran's family, regardless if the Veteran was a female or a male.  

Relatively happy camper:

    While I will admit, I frankly dont know, my answer to questions of this nature are pretty much the same:

Quote

If in doubt, apply.  That is, ask and ye shall receive.  If you dont apply, you may never know and, could well regret that.  I regret not applying for VA benefits earlier.  I could/should have applied at least 5 years sooner, but did not and my reasons for not applying earlier were not that good.  Dont make the mistake I made, learn from my mistakes and apply.  

ONE reason (not the only one) is that "even if" CURRENTLY you cant get DIC with 2 different spouses, congress and VA are constantly changing the rules, and, it may well turn out that it changes in your favor, and, upon applying, you get the effective date of the date you applied.  

Some one said that if we had to have a clear path of success before beginning each project, many of the great projects would never have been completed because, they would never have started them.  Sometimes, you have to step out and apply, and figure stuff out as you go along.  

The good part is that "IF" VA denies you they have to give a reasons and bases for denial, AND you have an opportunity to appeal those reasons (especially if they are bogus reasons, as VA has denied me for absolutely bogus reasons in the past.  THe first time VA denied my hearing loss "because it had been too long since military service".  I now know that is bogus.  "TIME since military service" is NOT one of the criteria, and the VA has to use the criteria.  Otherwise, they can deny me because "I listen to the wrong type of music",  or "they dont like the church I go to" or "they dont like they way I voted in the last election".  All of those are bogus denials. 

A valid denail may have been, "your hearing loss did not meet the minimum loss as defined in the criteria" or something like "there is no evidence that hearing loss was due to an in service event".   Now those may have been good denials, they are based upon the criteria.  But not how long its been since miiitary service, which is not one of the criteria.  

I appealed my hearing loss denial, and the board agreed with me that I had met the criteria for service connection for hearing loss, because I had all 3 Caluza elements.  

 

[relatively happy camper]

Agreed, failure will always happen anytime someone doesn't start whatever the task is.