Kansas spent the 2026 session on what a private company may charge a veteran for help filing a disability claim. The House answered with a cap. Gov. Laura Kelly answered with a veto, and on April 9 lawmakers let that veto stand. The distance between those answers is a fee the House would have allowed and a charge the governor refused to sign.
The House vehicle was House Bill 2214, a regulation rather than a ban. Kansas Reflector reported that for-profit firm Veteran Benefit Guide requested its introduction. The bill would have limited a consultant's compensation to one payment of five times the monthly increase in benefits obtained for the veteran, and required the client to sign a waiver acknowledging that free help was available elsewhere.
Five Times One Month's Increase
The House passed HB 2214 by 81-43. The ceiling was not a cut taken from a veteran's check for years. It was a single payment, tied to the monthly increase the company helped produce. A $500 increase would have supported a $2,500 fee. A $2,000 increase would have supported $10,000. Once the rating was done, the formula had nothing left to collect.
A cap is also a permission slip. The charge is allowed up to the line the statute draws. Veteran Benefit Guide had asked lawmakers to introduce this bill. Opponents testifying before the House Veterans and Military Committee said some for-profit services had already charged veterans tens of thousands of dollars to file claims that should be free. Five times a small increase stays under that range. Five times a large one does not. The cap would have stopped an open-ended bill. It would not have stopped a painful one.
The waiver covered the sales conversation, not the price. A veteran using a paid service would have had to sign a statement that they were choosing to pay for help available elsewhere for free. Kansas Reflector's account of the federal rule is that only accredited services are supposed to help file these claims. The signature would have put that no-fee option in writing before the company earned its multiple. It would not have forced the firm to work for free. It would have forced an acknowledgment that someone else does.
A Sustained Veto, Then a Directory
Kansas Reflector reported that lawmakers on April 9 sustained Kelly's veto of a bill that would have allowed for-profit consultants to charge veterans for claims help. Sustaining a veto means the legislature did not override it. The bill that reached her desk stopped there. The sustained veto meant this session had not approved the charge the governor rejected.
The revival ran through the same contested measure. At a Friday morning conference committee, Rep. Rick James replaced HB 2214's regulations with language that would have required the Kansas Office of Veterans Services to list certified for-profit companies on a website. The five-times cap was out. The waiver was out. A veteran looking for help would have found a state list of firms in the business of charging, without a statutory ceiling and without a signed reminder that accredited help is free.
That revival did not hold. Kansas Reflector reported that plans to bring the bill back fell apart as the legislative session ended. The website stayed a conference-committee proposal. The cap the House passed did not emerge from that failed revival. A state directory of paid consultants did not become the fallback.
A Rule Without the Old Penalty
The federal backdrop is older than this session, and less settled than a statute's tone suggests. Kansas Reflector reported that federal law permits only accredited services to help file veterans' disability claims, and that violations carry no criminal penalties. Military Times dated the hole to 2006, when Congress removed penalties for indirectly charging veterans for VA claims assistance without legalizing the practice.
Accredited organizations such as VSOs provide claims help at no charge, while accredited attorneys or agents may charge in limited situations, including some claims or appeals. That free help is what the waiver would have made a paying client acknowledge. Unaccredited firms charge for assistance with filings the federal rule reserves for accredited services. Congress, on the Military Times account, did not turn that business into a lawful profession when it lifted the indirect-fee penalties. It left a restriction standing and took a punishment off the board.
Kansas was being asked to write a state price into that gap. The five-times payment would have been the price. The waiver would have been the disclosure. When the veto stood, the House fee schedule did not become the rule attached to the bill the governor rejected. What remained was the federal mismatch, not a Kansas cap.
What Five Times Looks Like on an Invoice
The tens of thousands named in Topeka testimony are not a rhetorical ceiling. Task & Purpose reported that a North Carolina federal court ruled Veterans Guardian violated federal law by helping veterans prepare and submit disability claims without accreditation and by charging fees for those services.
In one case described in court documents, a former Army intelligence analyst received a 100% disability rating and monthly compensation of $4,272.80. Veterans Guardian charged him $21,360. Five times that monthly compensation is $21,364. The company charged four dollars less. HB 2214's multiple was the same five, applied to the monthly increase a company helped obtain rather than automatically to the whole check, and this was not a Kansas claim. When the monthly number is large, five times is not a modest filing fee. It is a bill in the tens of thousands, the range opponents had already described to the House committee.
Other courts have ordered money back rather than debating a multiple. Task & Purpose reported an Arizona ruling requiring VetLink Solutions to provide veterans restitution totaling $2 million for violations of consumer-fraud law. A Texas court ruled in January that VA Claims Insider had to pay veterans $6.8 million over deceptive fees and posing as a veterans' assistance organization. Those orders name other companies in other states. They are not a Kansas judgment, and they are not a finding about every firm that offers claims help.
Backlogs, Letters, and Flatter Caps
The companies grew up next to a claims system under obvious strain. Military Times reported that the VA received more than 2.4 million disability applications in fiscal year 2023, up 39% from the year before. The backlog of first-time disability claims waiting more than four months had doubled in the prior year and exceeded 300,000. Those numbers come from 2023 reporting. A first-time claim can sit for more than four months while a paid firm offers to work the file and accredited help is supposed to be free.
The War Horse reported that warning letters from the VA to claims-consulting companies spiked in 2024. At least 29 of 38 companies warned that they may be engaged in unlawful activities appeared to still be operating as of late November, and 34 had an active website or social media account. The department can send a warning. On that count, most of the warned firms were still easy to find.
Stateline reported in December 2024 that Maine, New Jersey and New York had passed laws in the previous year restricting for-profit consultants, with similar bills introduced in 17 other states. Louisiana Illuminator reported in May that Louisiana had capped the fees at $12,500. Senate Bill 208, as described then, would bar unaccredited private consultants from profiting off a veteran's initial disability claim and still let them earn money on later claims and appeals.
Kansas argued over a multiple instead of a flat stop, then did not enact the multiple. Five times a few hundred dollars is a contained fee. Five times an increase near that analyst's $4,272.80 monthly compensation clears Louisiana's $12,500 cap and sits around $21,000. The House was willing to write that kind of number into a formula. The veto held, the website rewrite fell apart, and the waiver that would have told a Kansas veteran the help was free somewhere else never became the paper a paid company had to hand over.
