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Benefits based on your National Insurance contributions

Last updated: 21/02/2025

If you have made the necessary National Insurance contributions you may get new style Jobseeker’s Allowance or new style Employment and Support Allowance if you stop working.

You may get new style Jobseeker’s Allowance if you are made redundant or leave your job for reasons other than illness or disability. Find out more about new style Jobseeker’s Allowance here.

You may get new style Employment and Support Allowance if you leave work due to illness or disability. You will need to under go an assessment for new style Employment and Support Allowance. After the assessment you may get one of 2 amounts depending on the result. Find out more about new style Employment and Support Allowance.

If you are not sure if you have made enough National Insurance contributions to qualify for new style Jobseeker’s Allowance or new style Employment and Support Allowance you can claim Universal Credit at the same time and will receive whatever one you are entitled to. New style Jobseeker’s Allowance and new style Employment and Support Allowance are generally not based on your income, or affected by it, unlike Universal Credit.

Both new style Jobseeker’s Allowance and new style Employment and Support Allowance come under the same rules as Universal Credit so you may be expected to do some work related tasks to get them. You may need to have a health assessment for new style Employment and Support Allowance.

More information on Universal Credit.

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Covering your tracks

You may not want other people to know that you’ve been searching for information or help from OPFS.

When browsing the internet whether on a mobile phone, tablet or computer, you leave a ‘history’ trail of pages and sites you’ve visited.

It’s impossible to completely avoid being tracked online but if you’re worried about someone knowing which sites you’ve been looking at, there are some things you can do to help cover your tracks.

If you’re using a laptop or desktop computer, try keeping another document or website open in a new tab or window while browsing. If someone comes in the room and you don’t want them to see what you’re looking at, you can quickly switch to another window or tab.

Deleting browsing history

You can delete the history of websites you’ve visited, but it’s important to know that if you delete your browsing history, someone else using the same device may notice.

If you share a tablet, mobile phone, laptop or computer with someone, they might notice that passwords or website addresses have disappeared from their history.

Find out how to remove your browsing history and other data from some of the most commonly used browsers:

Browsing in Private mode (incognito)

When browsing ‘incognito’, the internet browser won’t store cookies or record your browsing history on the computer, mobile or tablet.

This option is available on popular web browsers i.e. -

Toolbars

If you use a search toolbar in your web browser, remember that your searched items can be saved as part of your history. Find out how to delete your searched items from the following search engines: