Additional relief allowance – a flexible benefit for care at home

The additional relief allowance is a monthly budget of 125 euros. It is a versatile, flexible budget that can used in various ways for care at home.

People in need of care can use it to pay for services that enable them to live at home and enjoy a self-determined, independent life as far as possible or to provide relief to the people caring for them.

People are largely free to decide for themselves how and when to spend their monthly budget. They can choose to save up to 1,500 euros annually. 

It is a form of financial assistance provided by long-term care insurance providers to people with an assigned care grade of between 1 and 5 who are cared for at home.  The same entitlements and eligibility criteria apply to people with private long-term care insurance and those with statutory long-term care insurance.

The additional relief allowance can be used for:

• Resources for everyday support  
• Supplementing short-term care or partial residential care and reducing co-payments
• Additional supports services and domestic help provided by a care and support service

What are resources for everyday support?  

Resources for everyday support are services that help care recipients to be as independent as possible and manage their daily lives in a self-determined manner or that help provide relief for carers in their caring role.

They are often also referred to as support and relief services.

Resources in the following areas are possible:

• care and support for people in need of care  
• assistance and guidance for people in need of care in the performance of daily tasks   
• support for family carers and volunteer carers  

Specific services include, for example:  

• help with household chores, such as cleaning, laundry or shopping 
• escorting and providing assistance for all activities outside of the home, including social visits, attending concerts or visiting a cemetery
• support services offering hourly care
• support focusing on specific illnesses, e.g., dementia (dementia cafés)
• support for family carers provided by a family care counselor (“Pflegebegleiter” in German) 
• resources aimed at relieving the burden of care on family carers, e.g., assistance with filling out claim forms or organizational supports

The support may be provided at home or in facilities outside the home. The support may be provided to individuals or groups. 

There are no limits on the focus of the resources – you can identify those that suit your individual requirements or interests. 

How can I use the additional relief allowance for short-term care and for day and night care? 

Short-term care allows people in need of care to receive care and support in a residential care facility on a temporary basis. With day and night care, care recipients spend part of the day or night in a care facility.

The additional relief allowance can be used to: 

• supplement standard benefits for care-related costs – this is relevant, for example, for people with higher care grades availing of short-term care as the long-term care insurance subsidy will be used up more quickly in their situations 
• cover costs that are not reimbursed by the long-term care insurance provider, such as the costs of accommodation and meals (“hotel costs”) and investment costs 

People with care grade 1 can use the additional relief allowance to pay for short-term care as well as day and night care. Only people with care grade 2 or higher are entitled to the corresponding long-term care insurance benefits.

How can I use the additional relief allowance for support from a care or support service?

The additional relief allowance can be used to finance support from a care or support service – but only for additional support services or domestic help.

Only people with care grade 1 can use the additional relief allowance to pay for care support, such as care tasks relating to personal hygiene. People with care grade 2 or higher can only use their non-cash care benefits budget for this purpose.

Further information about resources for everyday support from support services is available from consumer advice centers.

The additional relief allowance amounts to 125 euros per month. The care grade assigned is irrelevant in terms of the additional relief allowance – the same budget is available to anyone who is cared for at home, including those with care grade 1.

If the additional relief allowance is not spent, you can save it and spend it at a later date. You have until 30 June of the subsequent year to spend any remaining budget. 

If, for example, you save the entire additional relief allowance for a period of six months, you will have accumulated 750 euros. After 18 months, the amount available to you will be 2,250 euros.  

The additional relief does not affect any other long-term care insurance benefits. You are still entitled to claim in full all other benefits available for care at home. 

Anyone who has been assigned a care grade is entitled to the additional relief allowance – provided that they are cared for at home. The entitlement applies regardless of whether the care recipient is cared for by a loved one or by a care service.

In addition, people who are cared for partly at home are entitled to the additional relief allowance for the time they spend at home. This applies, for example, to people who spend part of the week in a residential school or a facility for people with disabilities but spend their weekends at home.

The additional relief allowance is designed to enable simple and direct everyday help. However, those providing support need to be aware of the physical and cognitive abilities and behavior of people in need of care and require knowledge of first aid. This is essential to ensuring that they respond appropriately to the care needs and illness-related requirements of the care recipient.

For this reason, even everyday chores such as cleaning and laundry must be performed by a service provider or helper who has been approved for the additional relief allowance. The quality standards that must be met by providers and the skills required by staff in order to be approved differ depending on the federal state and the state-specific regulations that apply. In other words, they must be recognized under federal state legislation.

The following providers are often recognized:  

• Care services  
• Support services  
• Family relief services  
• Everyday companions (“Alltagsbegleiter”)  
• Family care counselors (“Pflegebegleiter”)   
• Services relating to household management and maintenance  

In addition, social associations and societies often offer recognized resources. In some federal states, it is also possible for private individuals to become recognized under state legislation so that the services they provide can be covered by the additional relief allowances.

You can ask your long-term care insurance provider about recognized resources in your area. Long-term care insurance providers also publish lists of providers and prices.

Care support points are another port of call. They are part of strong regional networks and can, in some cases, suggest alternatives if there are no relief and support services in your area. 

You can search for suitable support services on the following portals: 

Federal Association of Public Health Insurance Companies (AOK-Bundesverband): Care Navigator (Pflegenavigator)
Federal Association of Public Health Insurance Companies (BKK-Dachverband): CareFinder (PflegeFinder)
Association of Substitute Health Insurance Funds (VDEK – Verband der Ersatzkassen): Care Guide (Pflegelotse)

In some federal states, the additional relief allowance can be used to pay for everyday supports provided by private individuals.

These individuals, who are usually volunteers or helpers from the local neighborhood, are known as community helpers. 

They generally provide help with simply everyday requirements, such as:  

• leisure activities  
• escorting care recipients to doctors’ appointments and visits to authorities  
• providing domestic help  
• shopping 

The individual federal state determines whether and under what conditions community helpers are recognized. As a rule, community helpers must meet the minimum requirement of having completed a care course or be able to demonstrate expertise in care and must be registered with an official body. Some federal states, in contrast, only require proof of liability and accident insurance, knowledge of first aid and a certificate of good conduct. Community helpers are not normally permitted to be relatives of the care recipient or to be living with them in the same household. State governments often set upper limits on the costs of voluntary helpers.

Information about regulations is available from your long-term care insurance fund or from the ministry or senate responsible for health, care and social affairs in your federal state.

You can also ask your long-term care insurance fund for information about care courses for community helpers.

You don’t need to apply for the additional relief allowance. If you are receiving care at home, you are automatically entitled to the monthly budget.

However, in contrast to the care allowance, the additional relief amount is not a sum of money paid to you. Instead, your long-term care insurance provider only reimburses you for the costs of services you have already paid for yourself up to the maximum amount of the available budget and subject to your being able to submit receipts.

Costs can be reimbursed in one of two ways:

• You claim reimbursement of costs from your long-term care insurance provider yourself – you pay the costs up-front out of your own pocket and ask for a bill or receipt. You then submit this to your long-term care insurance fund or insurance company accompanied by an application for the costs to be reimbursed. 
• You assign your additional relief allowance to the service provider, who can then claim reimbursement from the long-term care insurance provider, meaning that you don’t need to pay anything in advance. 

What to be aware of when settling costs with the insurance provider directly 

If you claim reimbursement from your insurance provider yourself, you must make sure that the provider you are using is recognized under federal state legislation. If in doubt, ask your long-term care insurance fund or insurance company in advance whether they will accept receipts from the chosen provider and which conditions must be fulfilled in the case of community helpers.

Receipts must always be submitted in order to obtain a refund. Make sure that the services provided are listed on the receipts. 

A sample letter and a template that can be used for the reimbursement of costs for services providing everyday supports are available from your consumer advice center.

What to be aware of when assigning your additional relief allowance to a provider 

As unused portions of your allowance don’t expire, it is important to keep an overview of how much of your allowance remains to be spent. If you are already in receipt of non-case care benefits and you then assign your additional relief allowance to a care or support service, you can put an agreement in place with the service that it must separately indicate the costs that were reimbursed by means of the additional relief allowance. You can also ask your long-term care insurance provider how much of your allowance remains.  

It is also important to contractually agree the following with your care service:  

• which costs for which resources/services provided are to be reimbursed by means of the additional relief allowance
• when and how many times a month are these services to be provided 
• the exact costs of the individual resources/services
• that the additional relief allowance and non-cash care benefits are to be clearly demarcated and kept separate from one another