Compensation for hearing loss caused by military service
A military hearing loss claim is a civil compensation claim against the Ministry of Defence for permanent hearing damage caused by noise you were exposed to in service. Weapons fire, artillery, armoured vehicles, aircraft, engine rooms and ranges all produce noise well beyond the level at which hearing protection becomes mandatory, and where the MoD failed to protect you properly it is liable for the consequences in the same way as any other employer.
Hearing loss and tinnitus are among the most common conditions among UK veterans, and among the most under-claimed. Two beliefs account for most of that: that you cannot sue the MoD, and that a payment under the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme is the end of the matter. Neither is right.
We act for serving personnel and veterans across England and Wales on a No Win, No Fee basis. There is no upfront cost, nothing to pay if the claim does not succeed, and making a claim has no effect on your record, your pension or your entitlement to treatment.
Who can bring a military hearing loss claim
If you served and your hearing was damaged by service noise, you can claim. That covers serving personnel and veterans, regulars and reserves, across every branch. The exposures we see most often are these.
- Small arms, ranges and live fire Rifle, machine gun and pistol fire, particularly indoors, in vehicles or in confined ranges where the report is amplified by the surroundings.
- Artillery, mortars and demolitions Impulse noise at levels that can cause permanent damage from a single unprotected exposure, and routinely did during gun drills and battery fire.
- Armoured and tracked vehicles Sustained engine, track and intercom noise inside Challenger, Warrior, CVR(T), Bulldog and similar platforms, often over long deployments.
- Aircraft and flight decks Jet and rotary aircraft, engine runs, flight deck and hangar work across the RAF, the Fleet Air Arm and the Army Air Corps.
- Ships' machinery and engine rooms Royal Navy and Royal Fleet Auxiliary marine engineering, machinery spaces and gun bays, where noise is continuous and inescapable for the length of a watch.
- Workshops, REME and maintenance Grinding, riveting, cutting, air tools and test running — the same industrial noise as any civilian workshop, with the same duty to control it.
- Faulty or unavailable hearing protection Protection not issued, issued in the wrong size, not fit-tested, incompatible with helmets or comms, or in practice impossible to wear while doing the job.
Yes, you can sue the Ministry of Defence
This is the first thing most veterans need to hear, because the belief that you cannot is widespread and it is out of date by nearly forty years.
Section 10 of the Crown Proceedings Act 1947 did once give the Crown immunity from personal injury claims by service personnel. That immunity was removed by the Crown Proceedings (Armed Forces) Act 1987. For injury caused by exposure on or after 15 May 1987, the MoD owes you the same duty of care an ordinary employer owes an ordinary employee, and it can be sued in the ordinary way.
For exposure before that date the position is more complicated but very far from hopeless — the Secretary of State has power to revive liability in particular cases, and much long-service exposure straddles 1987 in any event, so part of the claim falls squarely within the modern law.
There is also a separate doctrine, sometimes called combat immunity, which prevents claims arising out of active operations against an enemy. It is narrower than it sounds. It does not cover training, ranges, maintenance, workshops, ships' machinery spaces or barracks, which is where the overwhelming majority of damaging noise exposure actually happens.
AFCS, War Pension and a civil claim are three different things
This is the point that costs veterans the most money, so it is worth being precise about it.
The Armed Forces Compensation Scheme covers injury and illness caused by service on or after 6 April 2005. It is a no-fault scheme run by Veterans UK — you do not have to prove anybody did anything wrong, only that service caused the condition. Awards are made against a published tariff. There is generally a seven-year time limit from the date of the injury or from when you first sought medical advice for it.
The War Pension Scheme covers service before 6 April 2005. It is also no-fault, and unlike the AFCS it has no time limit for making a claim, although you cannot claim while still serving.
A civil negligence claim is different in kind. It requires you to prove the MoD was at fault — that it knew or ought to have known the noise was damaging and failed to control it. Because it is fault-based, it is assessed on ordinary common law principles rather than a tariff, and it can include your full financial loss.
You can pursue an AFCS or War Pension claim and a civil claim. Doing so is normal. Where both succeed there are rules preventing you being paid twice for the same loss, so an AFCS award is typically taken into account when the civil claim resolves — but taken into account is not the same as cancelled out, and a great many veterans who have already had a tariff award are entitled to more.
If you have had an AFCS award for hearing loss, that is a reason to get advice, not a reason not to.
Conditions we claim for
Service noise causes a recognisable cluster of conditions, and it is common to have more than one of them at once.
- Noise-induced sensorineural hearing loss
- Tinnitus, including severe and intrusive tinnitus
- Acoustic shock from a single high-intensity exposure
- Hyperacusis — painful sensitivity to ordinary sound
- Difficulty with speech in background noise
- Loss of a hearing-dependent trade or role
- Sleep disturbance and associated psychological injury
Military tinnitus claims
Tinnitus deserves its own heading because for many veterans it is the more disabling condition, and because it is routinely understated by the people who have it.
After years of living with a ringing or hissing that never stops, people normalise it. They mention it in passing at a medical, describe it as "a bit of ringing", and it is recorded as mild. Severe tinnitus that wrecks your sleep, breaks your concentration and leaves you unable to sit in a quiet room is a serious injury in its own right, and it is compensated as one — in some cases more highly than a moderate hearing loss.
There is a further reason to be candid about it. Tinnitus and hearing loss frequently travel together, and the combination has a compounding effect: the hearing loss makes conversation hard work, and the tinnitus removes the quiet you would otherwise use to recover. When the examining consultant asks how it affects you, describe the worst of it, not the average of it.
How long does a military hearing loss claim take?
Most military hearing loss claims take between twelve and eighteen months from first call to settlement. Some resolve faster, and claims covering long or complex service histories can take longer.
The timeline is driven by three things rather than by the MoD being slow. First, obtaining your service medical records, which includes the audiograms taken on entry, periodically during service and on discharge — these are unusually good evidence, because they often show precisely when your hearing began to deteriorate. Second, the independent audiology examination and report. Third, the pre-action protocol itself, which gives the MoD three months and 21 days to investigate the allegations and respond on liability.
Where the MoD admits liability, negotiation on value usually takes a further few months. Where it disputes liability or causation, issuing proceedings frequently prompts a more realistic position, and the great majority still settle without a trial.
One thing genuinely does speed it up: your service records. If you already hold your medical documents, or your AFCS or War Pension paperwork, send them at the outset — it can take months off the front of the case.
What to do now
None of this requires you to have kept paperwork, and none of it costs you anything.
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1
Get your hearing tested An audiogram is the foundation of the claim. If you have not had one recently, ask your GP for a referral to audiology — or tell us and we will arrange an independent examination at no cost to you.
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2
Request your service records Your service medical records usually contain audiograms from entry, from periodic testing and from discharge. That sequence can show exactly when your hearing began to fall away, which is powerful evidence. We can request them for you.
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3
Gather what you already have AFCS or War Pension correspondence, discharge documents, your record of service, and anything showing your trade, unit and postings. None of it is essential, but each piece saves time.
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4
Write down your exposure Which weapons, vehicles, aircraft or machinery, roughly how often, and what protection you were given — or were not. Do this before memory fades further; it becomes your witness statement.
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5
Talk to a solicitor before you assume you are out of time The three years runs from when you knew your hearing loss was caused by service noise, not from when you served. Discharge in 1990 does not mean the claim died in 1993.
How much is a military hearing loss claim worth?
We do not publish a payout table, and we would be wary of any firm that does.
Compensation for the hearing loss and tinnitus themselves is assessed against the Judicial College Guidelines, which give courts a bracket to work from. Those brackets are revised periodically, so a figure printed on a web page ages badly and then sets an expectation nobody can meet. The AFCS tariff is a different scale again, which is why an AFCS award and a civil valuation for the same ears can look nothing like each other.
What drives the figure is consistent, and you can weigh it up yourself:
The degree of loss on your audiogram and how much of it is attributable to noise rather than age. Whether it affects one ear or both. The severity of any tinnitus, particularly its effect on sleep and concentration. Your age, because a younger veteran lives with it longer. And whether it has cost you work — a hearing standard that ended a career or blocked a promotion is a substantial part of many claims.
On top of that sits financial loss: lost earnings and pension, hearing aids and their replacement across your lifetime, batteries and assistive equipment.
Send us what you have and we will give you a realistic bracket for your case rather than an average for someone else's.