National insurance adjudication

Abstract

The National Insurance scheme is contained in the National Insurance Act (Northern Ireland), 1946, several amending statutes, and scores of regulations made under all those Acts. Some of the phrases used in the Acts and regulations seem especially designed to cause disputes as to their meaning and in their application. In fact, they were probably intended as a compromise between an indication of policy and flexibility in the application of the policy to individual cases. For example, the rate of a man's sickness benefit may depend on whether he is ?residing with? or ?wholly or mainly Maintaining? his wife, a woman's sickness benefit may depend on whether her husband is incapable of self-support ?for a prolonged period?, and the efficacy of any claim made out of due time will be determined by asking whether there was ?good cause? for the delay.