Widows Pension benifits from a commuted Pension (...

[iheartbristol]

HI, I wonder if someone could please offer some guidance? All amounts are approximate.

My father joined the RAF in '78 and left at age 40 in 2000. He commuted some of his pension to recieve a lump sum when he demobbed. He recieved £400 per month to start with and as far as we were aware his monthly pension would double to £800 when he hit age 55.

So far, so simple.

He died last month aged 51 and he and my Mother were married 31 years. My mother is still alive.

Hopefully still simple.

We were told by someone from either JPAC or Xafinity that for the first 3 months after his death my mother would recieve £800: 100% of the pension he would have been recieving now had he not commuted. We were told it would then go down to £400 after that.

We've had the letter through today and yes, in three months time she will recieve about £400. But for the first three months she will only recieve £450.

This has come as a bit of a shock compared to what we were expecting, I accept that life is like that sometimes, but I want to make sure this is actually correct and aside from asking us to send back a photocopy of the letter pointing out the errors, JPAC can't tell us if there's actually been an error because they're not allowed to talk to the people that calculate the pension amounts.

Does anyone know if their calculation was vaguely correct?

EDIT, the AFPS booklet states the following:

Short term family pension (first 3 months) worked out as follows:
"This pension is based on your daily rate of pensionable pay,

if you are still in Service when you die, or the daily pension rate if you die in retirement."

Widows Pension:
"if you die in retirement, we will pay your widow one half of the pension the scheme paid you before your death. This applies to that part of a pension earned through service given after 31 March 1973"

So by their calculations his "daily rate of pensionable pay" was £400 but "the pension the scheme paid you before your death" is considered to be £800.

Have I interpreted this correctly????? Or are those definitions just badly written and both mean the same thing and the pensions people have calculated wrong?

Thanks so much to anyone who manages to get to the bottom of this post.

[molerat]

Sorry for your loss. The wording of the booklet is a bit iffy and JPAC / Xafinity have been known to make a complete mess of these things. Might be worth giving these a call for some help or advice.

Forces Pension Society
68 South Lambeth Road
Vauxhall
London
SW8 1RL
Tel: 020 7820 9988
Website: www.forpen.co.uk
The Society protects the
pension interests of ex-Service
personnel of all ranks and
their dependants.

[molerat]

Originally Posted by iheartbristol

HI, I wonder if someone could please offer some guidance? All amounts are approximate.

My father joined the RAF in '78 and left at age 40 in 2000. He commuted some of his pension to recieve a lump sum when he demobbed. He recieved £400 per month to start with and as far as we were aware his monthly pension would double to £800 when he hit age 55.

So far, so simple.

He died last month aged 51 and he and my Mother were married 31 years. My mother is still alive.

Hopefully still simple.

We were told by someone from either JPAC or Xafinity that for the first 3 months after his death my mother would recieve £800: 100% of the pension he would have been recieving now had he not commuted. We were told it would then go down to £400 after that.

We've had the letter through today and yes, in three months time she will recieve about £400. But for the first three months she will only recieve £450.

This has come as a bit of a shock compared to what we were expecting, I accept that life is like that sometimes, but I want to make sure this is actually correct and aside from asking us to send back a photocopy of the letter pointing out the errors, JPAC can't tell us if there's actually been an error because they're not allowed to talk to the people that calculate the pension amounts.

Does anyone know if their calculation was vaguely correct?

EDIT, the AFPS booklet states the following:

Short term family pension (first 3 months) worked out as follows:
"This pension is based on your daily rate of pensionable pay,this for still serving

if you are still in Service when you die, or the daily pension rate if you die in retirement." applies to pensioners

Widows Pension:
"if you die in retirement, we will pay your widow one half of the pension the scheme paid you before your death. This applies to that part of a pension earned through service given after 31 March 1973"

So by their calculations his "daily rate of pensionable paydaily pension rate" was £400 but "the pension the scheme paid you before your death" is considered to be £800. this is the post 55 payment which could also be payable before 55 due to disability etc so probably no reason to suspect 1/2 would not be payable to a widow.

Have I interpreted this correctly????? Or are those definitions just badly written and both mean the same thing and the pensions people have calculated wrong?

Thanks so much to anyone who manages to get to the bottom of this post.

I still think you should contact FPS, AFPS75 is quite complex and the booklets are only a skim of the rules.

[iheartbristol]

Thanks molerat for clarifying that' it really isn't clear at all. We'll contact the FPS - I used to be a member but I let it lapse, but they were incredibly helpful to me - I'd forgotten all about them! Cheers for the reminder.