Understanding the Basics of CRDP

By Albert Methew

Disability and retirement benefits can be a difficult part of the law to understand. One of the main reasons for the difficulties comes from the fact that the laws are always changing. The Department of Veterans Affairs always provides updates at some point, but the intermediate periods of change and implementation can cause significant problems in the meantime.

One of the areas that has seen a number of changes recently is Concurrent Retirement and Disability. This particular program was intended to provide aid and assistance to military retirees who might still have other sources of retirement income. The standards keep changing. It's important to understand the basics so that you can determine whether you qualify.

Concurrent Retirement and Disability
The Concurrent Retirement and Disability Program (CRDP) is one of those minute areas of law that you can find legal resources and articles from places like legal zoom. The purpose of the program is to help restore some of the military retirement reductions that have gone into effect recently. It is also intended to help prevent the individuals from being penalized for having other retirement sources.

Eligibility for CRDP as of 2013
As of the latest update in May, 2013, CRDP eligibility requires the satisfaction of two factors. The first is that you must have served in the military for 20 or more years. The second thing that you must do is have a service connected disability that the board rates at 50 percent or higher.

For each of these, the government has its own panel that it uses to assess the standards. A qualifying military retiree is not quite as simple to prove as it sounds. The general definition is the 20 or more years of service, but a few exceptions do apply. Veterans who retired because of a medical disability as well as those who retired under the Temporary Early Retirement Author are excepted. Veterans who served with the National Reserve and the National Guard for 20 plus years can also apply, but they must wait until they receive their first retirement package.

The service connected disability generally turns into the most complicated one to evaluate. Service connected disability refers to disabilities that developed or worsened in some way after you entered the military. In some cases, they may also be conditions that developed due to the activities conducted in the service even if they did not manifest until later. To receive the benefits, you must demonstrate that your service disconnected disability goes beyond 50 percent.

The General Benefit
Most of the time, the benefit that is provided is equivalent to reduced retirement pay to compensate you. They calculate it per individual. No one person receives the same amount. Similarly, no one person will receive the same class of benefits because some benefits can be waived based on conduct in the service. Most of the time, it will end up being a monetary compensation that is somewhere between waived retirement pay and gross retirement pay. In general, the board assigns the greater value, but that is not required.

The one positive thing in the latest updates is that CRDP provisions can be made retroactively. This means that from the first date that you are eligible to receive the payments you can expect to be paid. It can take anywhere from six months to two years to get through the application process, but this assures that you will get the amount eventually. Bear in mind that you must have reached the appropriate elements to be able to even apply, so you cannot apply in advance to get a head start. They assess you as of the time it was filed, not the time that the application is received.

The author is associated with Legalzoom and LegalZoom Reviews, which is a prominent provider of legal advisory services to corporations, business houses and offers high end legal corporate and trademark services.

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