Who benefits?

Online benefits calculators are a cornerstone of income maximisation support. These self-guided tools help people find out if there’s any additional financial support they may be entitled to, and over the past decade have grown in number and reach, providing income maximisation to millions at a relatively low cost for providers such as banks and energy companies who embed them on their websites. 

These tools are by far the most commonly used tool by our Research Community as we found in our report In touching distance published earlier this year, with over half of those who had accessed income maximisation services (54%) having used one before.

In this blog we hone in on benefits calculators: what’s good about them, what’s less helpful, who they work for, and who is missing out.

From our research, we found that many Research Community members found benefits calculators helpful. One in three of those who had used a benefits calculator (30%) said that the calculator helped their finances and one in four (23%) said that it improved their mental health.

Benefits calculators have distinct advantages over other forms of income maximisation support. They are entirely self-paced, for example, which lets people engage whenever they feel ready, even if that’s in the middle of the night when money worries are making it hard to sleep.

They also allow users to pause and return later if they’re struggling to concentrate as a result of a mental health condition. Also, for people with conditions like social anxiety, calculators can offer greater psychological safety because they can be used in the privacy of their own home.

Our research shows that, for some people with mental health problems, benefits calculators can help provide all the support needed to maximise their income, and in turn support their mental health too.

For other people with mental health problems, however, the nature or severity of their symptoms can make engaging with calculators incredibly difficult. Benefits calculations can take a long time to complete, especially for people with more complex personal circumstances (for example, having dependents, multiple health conditions, etc.). For those of us with a mental health problem whose condition means having shorter attention spans and difficulty processing information, navigating this and staying engaged throughout can be incredibly challenging. 

This is one of the reasons that more than twice as many Research Community respondents that used a benefit calculator felt that they did not get all the help they needed from an online calculator (39%) as those who did (17%). Four in ten (41%) said that the calculator they used did not help their finances.

On top of that, the welfare system is extremely complicated, and benefits calculators can only simplify this so much while remaining accurate. This, again, places a big cognitive demand on people with mental health problems looking to complete them to know what they are entitled to. 

Finally, online benefits calculators are rarely, if ever, linked directly to the organisations that provide the financial support they locate, such as the Department for Work and Pensions. This means that, after putting in all the time and effort just to complete a calculation, someone then has to go and complete more applications, often repeating the same information. 

Benefits calculators are welcome in the toolbox of any organisation or advisor helping people to maximise their income. For some people with mental health problems they can be incredibly helpful. However, there’s more that can be done to ensure they are accessible for a wider group of people struggling with their money and mental health problems. For some, calculators will still not be enough, which is where advisor-led services become another key tool to support people struggling.

To help close the gap in support, we have produced a Best Practice Guide for income maximisation service providers, which contains changes services could make to become more accessible.

In addition, here’s what we are calling for:

The Department for Work and Pensions should work with income maximisation service providers to build a mechanism that simplifies the process for eligible households to access financial support, for example through consent-based data transferrals to pre-fill applications. 

Local authorities and essential services should:

• Use available data about residents to proactively identify and contact residents who are missing out on financial support they are eligible for. 
• Commission income maximisation tools and services, and embed access to these services across multiple points in a customer journey, particularly at key moments when customers are identified as being in, or at risk of, financial difficulty.