Minister Paul: “If you become disabled, you want to know where you stand. The waiting time is currently far too long. As a cabinet, we want to deploy insurance physicians and HBO professionals more specifically in disability assessments so that we can provide clarity to more people per year. We are working on this now. Additionally, the disability system must be simpler. We are currently mapping the fundamental choices this requires so that a new cabinet can quickly make decisions about this.”

Backlog

More and more disability assessments are being requested, but there are not enough insurance physicians to help everyone. In 2026, UWV is expected to receive 40,000 more applications for a social-medical assessment than it can process. As a result, the backlog grows every year.

Recovery Operation

UWV wants to start in 2026 with correcting underpaid WIA benefits due to calculation errors. The Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment has established a scheme to ensure that this one-time financial compensation does not negatively affect their income-dependent schemes, such as healthcare or rent allowance. UWV is expected to start paying out the compensations during 2026.

Administrative Fines

UWV must make a decision on a disability benefit application within 16 weeks. If this does not happen, people can hold UWV accountable. This can lead to an administrative fine. Due to the growing backlog in assessing applications, it is unrealistic that UWV will meet this deadline in the coming years. Therefore, preparations are being made to temporarily abolish the administrative fine in the WIA. People can still go to court if they deem it necessary, ensuring legal protection remains.

Distributing Assessment Tasks

To carry out more assessments, a larger portion of tasks will be performed by other professionals, as requested by the House in the Ceder motion. To achieve this, UWV will soon allow HBO professionals to perform more tasks independently. Work is also underway on a different task distribution. Other professionals will perform more tasks under the responsibility of the insurance physician.

At the same time, the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment, together with professional associations and UWV, is starting an exploration of the future division of roles for the long term. Existing laws and regulations will need to be amended in the future so that some tasks currently legally assigned to insurance physicians can also be performed by other healthcare professionals.