Civil Claim vs AFCS vs War Pension: Military Hearing Loss Routes Explained

A veteran with military hearing loss may hear three different terms: civil claim, Armed Forces Compensation Scheme (AFCS) and War Pension Scheme (WPS).

They are not three names for the same process.

They use different legal tests, different dates, different time limits and different methods of compensation.

A person may potentially qualify under one route but not another. In some circumstances, a statutory AFCS or War Pension award does not prevent a separate civil claim against the Ministry of Defence.

And for people whose service spans 6 April 2005, even deciding whether WPS or AFCS applies can require careful analysis.

This guide explains the differences specifically in the context of military hearing loss and tinnitus.

The short version

• A civil claim is normally a negligence claim seeking damages from the Ministry of Defence.
• AFCS is a statutory no-fault scheme for qualifying injury or illness caused or made worse by service on or after 6 April 2005.
• WPS is a separate statutory no-fault scheme for qualifying disablement arising from service before 6 April 2005.
• You do not need to prove MOD negligence to claim under AFCS or WPS.
• A civil claim normally requires proof of legal liability as well as medical causation.
• AFCS can be claimed by somebody who is still serving or has left service.
• WPS payments are available only after leaving service.
• AFCS normally has a seven-year time limit, but important exceptions exist.
• WPS has no claim time limit, although the evidential rules change after seven years from leaving service.
• WPS has a hearing-specific rule: where the condition is noise-induced sensorineural hearing loss and disablement is assessed below 20%, current GOV.UK guidance says neither a pension nor a lump-sum gratuity is payable.
• Current official MOD material says AFCS does not make a separate award for stand-alone tinnitus; hearing-disorder awards include an element for accompanying tinnitus.
• A previous AFCS or WPS award or rejection does not necessarily prevent a civil military hearing-loss claim.
• Compensation cannot normally be recovered twice for the same injury or loss.
• 6 April 2005 is the dividing date between WPS and AFCS.
• 15 May 1987 concerns the historic Crown-immunity issue affecting civil claims. It is a completely different legal date.
• The Matrix is not a fourth compensation scheme. It is an arrangement operating within the current civil Military Deafness Litigation.

Current position — August 2026

The Armed Forces Compensation Scheme is currently under a programme of reform following the 2023 Quinquennial Review.

Civil claim, AFCS and WPS compared

What is a civil military hearing-loss claim?

A civil military hearing-loss claim is generally a personal-injury claim against the Ministry of Defence.

The claimant alleges that the MOD failed to take reasonable care to protect them from harmful noise and that the failure caused injury such as noise-induced hearing loss, tinnitus, acoustic trauma or associated financial loss.

Unlike AFCS and WPS, this is a fault-based legal route. The existence of hearing loss does not itself establish negligence.

Depending on the case, issues can include:

• duty of care;
• breach of duty;
• harmful noise exposure;
• causation;
• Crown immunity;
• combat immunity;
• limitation;
• contributory negligence;
• apportionment;
• the nature and extent of the injury;
• damages.

The current Military Deafness Litigation has resolved or structured some of these issues for claims falling within the Matrix arrangements. But causation and the value of the individual injury remain important individual questions.

What can civil damages compensate?

Civil damages are intended, so far as money can do so, to compensate the claimant for the injury and resulting losses. Depending on the evidence, that may potentially include:

General damages for hearing loss, tinnitus, pain, suffering and loss of amenity, effect on communication and effect on everyday life.

Hearing aids and treatment, where reasonably required and supported by appropriate evidence.

Loss of earnings or employment disadvantage, where hearing damage has affected work or future earning capacity.

Other financial loss, depending on the individual circumstances.

The 2026 Abbott v Ministry of Defence judgment illustrates why civil damages are highly individual: the two test claimants had materially different medical findings and materially different damages assessments.

Civil damages are not determined by placing a veteran into an AFCS tariff descriptor. The court or parties consider the actual injury and proven loss. That is one of the major differences between civil litigation and statutory compensation.

What is AFCS?

The Armed Forces Compensation Scheme provides no-fault compensation for injury, illness or death caused or made worse by service on or after 6 April 2005. It is administered by Defence Business Services / Veterans UK.

The current MOD statement of policy expressly describes AFCS as a no-fault scheme. That means a claimant does not need to prove negligence.

Imagine two service personnel suffer the same service-caused hearing injury.

For a civil claim, one may need to establish that the MOD was legally negligent. For AFCS, the question is different: the claimant needs to establish the required causal connection with service under the scheme rules.

The fact that nobody acted negligently does not automatically prevent an AFCS award.

Who can claim AFCS, and what does it pay?

Current or former members of the Armed Forces can potentially claim, including relevant Regular and Reserve personnel. A person does not have to wait until discharge before making an AFCS claim — which is different from WPS.

There are two principal forms of AFCS compensation.

Lump-sum award. A tax-free lump sum determined by the statutory injury tariff.

Guaranteed Income Payment. More serious injuries may also qualify for a GIP: a tax-free, index-linked regular payment intended to reflect serious long-term effects on earning capacity. Not every AFCS award carries a GIP.

The scheme contains prescribed injury descriptors. The claimant's injury is matched to the appropriate descriptor and tariff level, which is a much more structured method of assessment than ordinary civil damages. The fact that a particular civil claim might be worth one amount does not mean AFCS must produce the same figure.

Does AFCS cover tinnitus by itself?

Current official MOD material says AFCS awards are not made for stand-alone tinnitus. Instead, the hearing-disorder awards include an element for accompanying tinnitus.

That is a feature of the AFCS tariff. It should not be confused with the medical question of whether tinnitus can exist without measurable hearing loss, and it should not be confused with civil damages.

In Abbott, Mr Craggs did not establish that his current hearing loss was caused by military NIHL, but the High Court separately found that his tinnitus had been caused by military noise and awarded civil damages for it. So AFCS tariff treatment is not the same as civil-law treatment of tinnitus — our guide to tinnitus and military service explains the medical side.

What is the War Pension Scheme?

The War Pension Scheme is the older no-fault compensation system. It applies to qualifying disablement caused or aggravated by service before 6 April 2005. A person must normally have left service before WPS payments can be made.

WPS is also no-fault. The claimant is not suing the Ministry of Defence for negligence — the question is whether the disablement is attributable to or aggravated by qualifying service under the scheme rules.

Current GOV.UK guidance is explicit about the deadline.

A veteran who left the Armed Forces decades ago can therefore still potentially apply. But "no deadline" does not mean evidence stops mattering.

The WPS rules contain a different approach to the burden of proof depending on how long after service the claim is made. Where the claim is made not later than seven years after termination of service and there is reasonable doubt that disablement is due to or aggravated by service, the benefit of doubt is given to the claimant. Where the claim is made more than seven years later, the benefit of reasonable doubt applies where reliable evidence creates that reasonable doubt.

So there remains no claim deadline, but the evidential position changes.

The WPS hearing-loss exception

In general WPS uses a percentage assessment of disablement. Current guidance normally provides a War Disablement Pension at 20% or more, and a tax-free gratuity below 20%.

But military hearing loss has a very important exception.

This is one of the most important hearing-specific differences on this page.

What is special about 6 April 2005?

The date 6 April 2005 marks the transition from WPS to AFCS.

Broadly: service before 6 April 2005 falls to WPS; service on or after 6 April 2005 falls to AFCS.

But long-service veterans can cross both periods. Those are known as spanning cases.

A spanning case is one where service relevant to the claimed condition occurs both before and after 6 April 2005 — for example service from 1985 to 2010. That can become particularly complicated with gradual conditions such as hearing loss, because the injury may develop over years rather than from one identifiable accident.

Why JOC matters for spanning hearing-loss cases

JOC v Secretary of State for Defence [2022] UKUT 208 (AAC) is particularly useful because it is not an analogy borrowed from another injury. It is a military hearing case.

The decision itself records that it "concerns hearing disablement in a spanning case, where the claimant's military service both predated and postdated 6 April 2005". The approach taken was to divide the disablement between the two service periods.

The WPS assessment was concerned with hearing loss attributable to the pre-6 April 2005 period, based on an audiogram from February 2009, with the post-2005 period referred to AFCS. Post-2005 hearing loss cannot simply be folded into the WPS assessment because the person happened to remain in uniform.

The Upper Tribunal dismissed the appeal, holding that the First-tier Tribunal's decision involved no error of law. The claimant had pursued it even after his AFCS appeal succeeded, because he wished to clarify the law on spanning service.

Can both WPS and AFCS apply in a spanning case?

Potentially — but this needs stating carefully, because the authority contains both halves of the answer.

So an award under each scheme is possible, but departmental policy leans towards resolving everything under one scheme where the facts allow. A veteran should not read a spanning history as meaning two awards are the expected outcome.

And compensation cannot simply be duplicated for the same injury. A spanning case therefore deserves individual consideration.

Why audiograms matter particularly in spanning cases

Hearing loss is measurable over time. Historic audiograms around 6 April 2005 can therefore be particularly valuable.

They may help show:

• hearing before the dividing date;
• hearing close to the dividing date;
• later deterioration;
• which part of the hearing impairment may relate to which service period.

JOC itself turned on a specific audiogram. That is a strong example of why military hearing records can matter for reasons that go beyond simply proving that hearing loss exists today — our guide to military medical records and hearing tests explains how to obtain them.

Do not confuse these two dates

Military hearing cases contain two completely different legal dividing dates.

A veteran can have a history involving both. Service from 1984 to 2010 potentially raises the pre/post-15 May 1987 civil Crown-immunity issue *and* the pre/post-6 April 2005 WPS/AFCS issue.

Our guide to why 15 May 1987 matters explains the first date separately.

What is the time limit for AFCS?

The general AFCS time limit is seven years. But the actual starting point is more detailed than "seven years from leaving the military".

Current JSP 765 says that for an injury the seven-year period starts from the earliest applicable date among:

• the day the injury is sustained;
• the day a non-service injury is made worse by service;
• the day service ends;
• for an illness, the date the individual first sought medical advice about it.

There are also exceptions. In some illness cases the period can be extended by a further three years, where the illness first started within the seven-year period but "was not diagnosed until less than a year before the end of those seven years". And the ordinary time limits do not apply to a condition medically considered a late-onset illness: for those, JSP 765 sets the limit at "three years from the date of diagnosis, whenever that diagnosis takes place", for post-service claims. Other extension provisions can also apply.

What is the time limit for WPS, and for a civil claim?

For WPS there is no claim time limit. That makes it fundamentally different from AFCS. Someone can potentially make a first WPS claim many decades after leaving service.

However, the evidential rules change after seven years, payments generally do not backdate to when the injury occurred, and delay can make factual evidence harder to obtain. So there may still be good reasons not to delay unnecessarily.

A civil personal-injury claim operates under completely different limitation rules. The ordinary starting point is generally a three-year limitation period, but in disease and latent-injury cases questions arise about when the injury occurred, when the claimant first knew relevant facts, the statutory "date of knowledge", and whether the court should exercise its discretion to allow a late claim.

Military hearing loss often develops gradually and may not be recognised until years after the harmful exposure. Limitation therefore cannot safely be determined simply from a discharge date or a first day of service.

What about the Matrix deadline?

There is currently also a specific deadline relating to the Matrix arrangements in the Military Deafness Litigation.

That is not the same as the ordinary civil limitation period. And it is not an AFCS or WPS deadline.

Is the Matrix another compensation scheme?

No. This is one of the most important distinctions on the site.

The Matrix is not AFCS, not WPS, not a government no-fault benefit and not a fourth compensation scheme.

It is an agreement operating within the civil Military Deafness Litigation, addressing recurring issues including Crown immunity, combat immunity, breach of duty, contributory negligence, apportionment, noise-immission levels and limitation. Our guide to what the MOD Matrix is explains it in full.

The Matrix does not turn a civil negligence claim into AFCS. Medical causation and the value of individual claims still need to be addressed.

Can I claim AFCS or WPS and also make a civil claim?

Potentially, yes.

Current MOD policy states that receiving an AFCS award does not prevent somebody from bringing a common-law damages claim where they believe MOD negligence caused the injury, and says the same of a WPS award. The statutory decision and the civil decision are made independently.

What if I already received, or was refused, AFCS or a War Pension?

Do not automatically assume the civil route is closed.

The reason is that the routes ask different questions. AFCS rejected does not mean the MOD was not negligent. And WPS award made does not mean the MOD admitted negligence.

An AFCS or WPS rejection is not a court finding that military noise did not damage your hearing — those schemes apply their own statutory rules, descriptors, evidence and causation tests. Equally, an unsuccessful civil claim does not automatically determine every possible statutory compensation question.

Any overlapping compensation may still have to be taken into account so that the same injury or financial loss is not compensated twice.

Do I need to know which scheme applies before applying?

No — and you do not need to work it out in advance.

That is useful for somebody whose condition or service history crosses the 2005 boundary: the decision-maker can consider which scheme is relevant. A more complex spanning case may still require careful evidential analysis.

Do I need a solicitor for AFCS or WPS?

You can apply directly. AFCS and WPS are government compensation schemes, and you do not need to pay a claims company simply to submit an application.

The Royal British Legion also provides support in appropriate cases.

A civil negligence claim is very different. It involves negligence law, limitation, medical causation, expert evidence, damages, litigation costs and Matrix arrangements where applicable, so professional legal advice is usually sensible. RBL's current hearing-loss guidance suggests contacting its solicitors group or a solicitor who undertakes personal-injury litigation.

Do the routes use the same test for causation?

No. This is another reason the outcome under one route does not automatically determine another.

Civil claim. Medical causation is determined under ordinary civil-law principles. The claimant needs appropriate evidence that the relevant negligent exposure caused or materially contributed to the injury according to the applicable legal test.

AFCS. The statutory scheme asks whether the injury or illness was caused or made worse by service under the AFCS rules. The scheme is no-fault, but causation still matters.

WPS. WPS also requires a causal link between disablement and service, but contains its own burden-of-proof rules, including the benefit-of-reasonable-doubt provisions.

These legal frameworks are not interchangeable. "No-fault" should not be confused with automatic entitlement.

Does the same hearing test decide all three routes?

No. The same audiogram may be evidence in several systems, but each system asks different questions.

Civil claim. An expert may need to determine whether military NIHL exists, how much was caused by relevant noise, and what functional injury resulted.

WPS. The scheme may need to determine whether disablement is attributable to pre-6 April 2005 service, the percentage level of disablement, and whether the NI sensorineural hearing-loss threshold for payment is met.

AFCS. The hearing injury needs to be placed within the relevant statutory tariff descriptor.

So an audiogram does not have one universal "compensation meaning" — our guide to how to read a military audiogram explains what it does and does not measure.

Which route is best?

There is no responsible universal answer. They are not interchangeable products where somebody simply chooses the one offering the biggest payment.

The routes depend on:

• when the relevant service occurred;
• when the injury was caused;
• whether negligence is alleged;
• service status;
• time limits;
• level of hearing impairment;
• tinnitus;
• available evidence;
• previous awards;
• the person's losses.

Somebody may potentially pursue more than one route. Somebody else may only have one realistic option.

Four worked examples

Service entirely before 1987 — say 1972 to 1980. A civil negligence claim faces the historic Crown-immunity problem explained in our 15 May 1987 guide. But that does not automatically rule out WPS, which is no-fault and has no claim time limit. The veteran's hearing still needs to satisfy the WPS rules, including the special payment threshold for NI sensorineural hearing loss.

Service from 1990 to 2000. Relevant service is after the 1987 Crown-immunity change but entirely before the AFCS start date. Potential routes may therefore include WPS and, depending on the evidence and legal requirements, a civil claim. AFCS would not ordinarily be the scheme for an injury caused by that pre-2005 service period.

Service from 2008 to 2020. Relevant service is entirely in the AFCS era. Potential routes may include AFCS and potentially a civil claim if the requirements for negligence and the other legal elements are met. WPS would not ordinarily apply.

Service from 1985 to 2015. This is the complicated one. The history crosses both 15 May 1987 and 6 April 2005, so it potentially raises pre-1987 Crown immunity, post-1987 civil exposure, pre-2005 WPS service, post-2005 AFCS service, spanning hearing loss, limitation, and audiograms across several decades.

What if the hearing loss only became severe after 2005?

The answer depends on why.

A later audiogram may show substantially worse hearing. But that does not automatically tell you how much of the injury arose from pre-2005 service, post-2005 service, ageing, later civilian noise or another medical cause.

JOC demonstrates why this distinction can be difficult. The statutory scheme needs to identify the hearing loss attributable to the relevant service period rather than simply treating the final audiogram as the answer to everything.

What if I have tinnitus but little measurable hearing loss?

The routes can treat that situation differently.

Civil claim. Tinnitus can potentially be assessed separately. Abbott provides a direct example.

AFCS. Current official MOD material says there is no separate stand-alone tinnitus award.

WPS. The applicable WPS rules and level of disablement need to be considered separately.

Do not assume one scheme's treatment of tinnitus dictates another's.

What if I am still serving?

AFCS. You can potentially claim while still serving.

WPS. Payments are available only once service has ended.

Civil claim. Being in service does not itself mean a civil hearing-loss claim is impossible, although individual legal and practical issues require advice. RBL's current guidance expressly includes people who are still serving: "If you have served in HM Forces on or after 15th May 1987, or if you are still serving in HM Forces, you may be able to claim Hearing Loss."

Can I get free help with AFCS or WPS?

Yes. Veterans do not need to pay a private company merely to access the statutory compensation schemes.

Possible sources of help include the Veterans Welfare Service, Veterans UK, the Royal British Legion and other recognised veterans' organisations.

Does applying for WPS or AFCS mean I am suing the MOD?

No. That language is inaccurate.

A statutory compensation application is not the same thing as bringing a negligence lawsuit. AFCS and WPS are administrative compensation schemes; a civil claim is litigation or potential litigation against the MOD.

Nor does an AFCS or WPS award mean the MOD admitted fault. Both are no-fault schemes, and the MOD can make a statutory award without admitting negligence.

Equally, a civil settlement does not automatically qualify somebody for AFCS or WPS. The schemes make their own decisions under their own legislation.

Frequently asked questions