To ask for help re Maternity Allowance

[TotHappy]

Putting this here for traffic.

I put in a claim for Maternity Allowance and got my letter telling me the amount and when payments would start today.
They say they will pay me £113.25 a week, paid four weekly so every four weeks, £453.
My monthly salary is only £432.25.

My understanding is that MA is 90% of weekly earnings, so wtf is this?? I had to submit payslips with my application - think it was three months worth but it may have been four. One of these payslips would have shown overtime of £231. But that still doesn't add up to enough to make £113.25 equal 90% of my weekly earnings from what I can calculate.

The reason I'm claiming MA is because my weekly earnings weren't enough to qualify for SMP (£118 is the cut off). But now it looks as though they've calculated that my weekly earnings were higher than this?!

I'm worried that they will decide at some point that they've paid me too much, or that they shouldn't have paid me MA at all and I will be stuffed if they claw it back. Has anyone any experience of MA being more than expected and why?

I could try to ring them and ask about how they got to the calculation but I'm leery about whether or not this would delay payments and leave me short.
I could also put aside the amount that is 'more' than I expected in case they want to claw it back.
Or I could assume they know what they're doing as they had the payslips they asked for, plus whatever info from HMRC.

I can't speak to anyone at work for clarification - it's a tiny charity and my job is admin including personnel/payroll - I sorted this all out myself, there is no other HR and no one would have a clue.

What to do?

Don’t quote me Op, but I think the first 6 weeks you get 90% of your salary then onto maternity allowance after?

Well... It's not what the letter says but it does say maternity allowance IS 90% of your salary so what would be the difference?

They're offering over £800 more than I was expecting them to give me over the 39 weeks... Hence why I'm scared they're going to try to grab it back.

£148.68 a week or 90% of your salary whichever is lower so I think you’ll get around £389

Then you’ll get child benefit on top around £80

Yes, that's what I thought too - my weekly earnings (without overtime) are £99.75. so 90% of that is £89.77 a week. That's the maternity allowance I expected to be paid.

But instead they have sent a letter saying they're going to pay me £113.25 a week.

I could be wrong (it's been a while since I claimed MA, I was signed off sick for a period so my wages didn't work out enough for SMP) but your overtime could have bumped up your average. I know when I claimed I was actually advised to send off my wage slips with the highest amounts to get the best amount of MA. Like I said I could be wrong but that's how I remember it.

@SnowWhitesRestingBitchFace I think your right, it’s an average of your earnings 6 or so weeks before Mat starts, that’ll explain the difference

I've just double checked and it's definitely done on your average gross wage so your overtime has done you a favour and it's all fine ☺️

Ok thanks for the input.

It still seems like too much even based on the overtime, but since they haven't given any figures for how they've calculated, I can't really tell.

If you are self-employed and have paid ANY voluntary National Insurance contributions, they give you the full amount for the whole time! I was shocked and thought I would have to pay it all back, but after a few hours at Citizens Advice and several calls to HMRC and Maternity, we finally discovered that was why.

I’ve also had a letter confirming my maternity allowance and it works out at a little over what I normally earn. I thought it was 90% as well so was quite surprised. I think in my case it was because I did some overtime in the summer so I’m thinking they must have taken that into account when working out an average or something. Hopefully it’s all ok!

@Confrontayshunme
I hope you are right. I'm self employed and my MA letter has come through at £27 a week (far less than I earn) but it said I may hear from HMRC and be able to pay voluntary NI and increase the amount. Is that what you had to do?

Im not self employed, this is all based on payslips.
Adelais, can you remember which payslips you sent off as evidence? Was it the ones showing your overtime? I can't see how they can make it as much as they have on the payslips I sent them but if they also collect evidence over longer term from HMRC then maybe.
I've never claimed tax credits or UC before but have heard stories of claw back even after years, when it was their mistake - that's what worries me! I suppose the only way to know is to ring them.

I've not checked so might be wrong but isn't maternity allowance a fixed amount irrespective of earnings and it's the same every week ? The 90% is the first 6 weeks of SMP when you're employed on earnings above the threshold. SMP is different to MA

You send off the payslips showing your highest earnings. Maternity Allowance is then calculated on the total you got paid (including any overtime, bonuses, etc) and is the lower of 90% of that amount or £148ish

You only get the full maternity allowance if 90% of your earnings in the 13 weeks worth of payslips is over £148ish. Otherwise it will be less than £148.

If you are self employed and have paid sufficiently class 2 NI then you get the full amount

Your qualifying weeks are 17 to 25 I think? So in those 8 weeks if one week you earned £231 but the rest were £99.75 then that averages out at £116.15. 90% of £116.15 is £104.54. Is it possible that you did a bit of overtime on one of those other weeks too? It’s possible you’re right on the threshold for SMP.

It's different for Maternity Allowance (its SMP that has qualifying weeks). For MA they send in payslips covering 13 weeks of pay and they work out an average amount from them

@TotHappy I applied in November and sent off 4 months payslips July-October and I had done overtime in July and August so my pay was higher. That’s the only reason I can think of.

Yes, overtime and bonuses will affect what you get paid.

@RhymingRabbit3 It’s normal (If self employed) for them to tell you you only qualify for the lower amount and then you can top up your NI. I believe its because you used to be able to pay NI throughout the year where as now it is with your self assessment so most self employed people won’t have paid enough NI at the time they apply.

The following govt website will help you work it out:

www.gov.uk/maternity-allowance/what-youll-get

@Thetigeronthewobbelboard that's good to know, thank you! My baby is due in March so I wont have done my tax return for this year yet so if I can pay the NI early to qualify that's great. That's what I thought would happen and when I got the letter saying £27 I panicked as it's a lot less! Hopefully I'll hear from HMRC soon 🤞

@RhymingRabbit3, I am 27 weeks and self employed as well, I have just recently applied and not heard back yet but I spoke to them before I applied and they said they should write to me and invited me to pay 13 weeks national Insurance and then I would get the full amount.

I asked at the time if I could call before I got the letter and ask to pay it and she said that it's also an option so I am going to give it a week and then call them and pay, ill probably pay the full amount for the yr just to cover the whole test period .

Thanks everyone for your input on this.

I called them this afternoon and she took me through the calculations they'd done then and there on the phone - there was no queue to get through either so anyone who's thinking of calling, 2.30pm on a weekday seems to be a good time!

It was as simple as, although they ask for 13 weeks worth of wage slips, they only calculate 4 weeks to the month. So I submitted wage slips for Aug, Sep, Oct which was a 13 week period and I was totalling the three lots of wages and dividing by 13 to work out my average weekly wage. But they were only dividing by 12 as they work on the assumption of a 4 week month.

Very generous way of calculating the average, and because in Sep I was paid overtime, the result is that my MA will bring me in about £50 a month more than my salary did.

Happy ending!