News item | 23-09-2025 | 13:17
Of the sickness law benefits that may contain a mistake, only current benefits and benefits that were terminated and adjusted less than six months ago are reviewed and adjusted. Minister Mariëlle Paul of Social Affairs and Employment writes this about this previously reported error in a letter to the Chamber. A total of 593 benefits are being investigated.
In the past six weeks, UWV has started revising 203 ongoing sickness benefits, 378 Sickness Benefits and 12 terminated WAZO benefits. In these cases there may be recovery or supplementary payment. With benefits that were terminated longer than six months ago, there will no longer be paid or reclaimed.
Background
In June it was reported to the Chamber that from 2016, for part of the Sickness Benefits Act (SW benefits) the income discount was not (fully) carried out when determining the amount of the benefit. In addition, UWV has found that around 3,000 WAZO benefits were wrongly reduced. With a sample, UWV has determined that too much has been paid in about half of the recipients and too little at a quarter.
Revise benefits
Because it concerns short -term benefits – of a maximum of two years – it has been chosen to leave benefits that were terminated more than six months ago. For most people this turns out to their advantage. This approach also ensures as little uncertainty as possible among former recipients of Sickness Benefits Act and puts little pressure on the implementation by UWV. People can always make a request for revision themselves.
Mariëlle Paul, Minister of Social Affairs and Employment: “With these benefits, employees and employers have neatly passed on their information, but the government did not take action correctly. That is simply not good, and we have to learn from what went wrong here. For people who still have a sickness benefit, we recover the mistake. But there are also many people who once received benefits, but now we have to let no uncertainty about the past.”