Over the last year, the Victim Compensation Fund (VCF) has made slow, but steady improvements in the time required to process claims. In June of 2017, the VCF reported that it was on track to decide the remainder of the 2015 claims, whether new claims or amendments, before the end of the year (assuming all information necessary to complete review had been submitted by the claimant or third-party entities). Although the VCF did not meet this benchmark, in its most recent conference call in December 2017, the VCF declared significant progress in clearing the 2015 backlog. Specific results include the following:
- Only about 200 claims that were submitted before January 1, 2016, and that are ready for compensation review, remain to be decided; although more than half of these are on hold waiting for a response to a missing information request or for a third-party feed response.
- There are about 150 claims from 2015 or earlier that need an eligibility determination before they are ready for compensation review, and about 250 claims from 2015 or earlier with submitted compensation amendments.
- With respect to 2016 claims, approximately 2,000 claims are ready for a compensation determination, either on an original claim or on a compensation amendment, while another 1,200 need some form of an eligibility determination.
The VCF communicated that it will enter 2018 having significantly cut the lifecycle of submission-to-award. On average, the VCF expects to be able to issue an award determination within 18 months of the claim being submitted with all required information. There can, however, be significant variation given the type and complexity of the claim. A year ago, the VCF was still reviewing 2013-2014 claims, so it is making progress. However, VCF’s goal remains to reduce the average to 12 months.
For the VCF’s most recent Quarterly Report, click here. Weekly statistics are also available on vcf.gov.
The deadline for filing a VCF claim is December 18, 2020. If you need assistance with submitting your claim, reach out to Sullivan Papain Block McManus Coffinas & Cannavo at (800) 962-9954 and via SPBMCC’s contact page.
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