Is there a pension for single people?

Caz123

Does anyone know if there is a pension for single people? As a single person, if I die shortly after retirement, my estate would receive nothing. This does not seem fair......

chris_m

Caz123 wrote: »

Does anyone know if there is a pension for single people?

Most, of not all, pensions are individual so marital status doesn't really come into it. Some include an element of a widow(er)s pension (or, possibly other dependant) but that's about it.

Caz123 wrote: »

As a single person, if I die shortly after retirement, my estate would receive nothing. This does not seem fair......

Maybe not, but equally would it be fair if you were to live longer in retirement than most other people? The pension would be paid out for longer then for most others.
That is the educated risk that providers take - that some people will live longer than expected and therefore cost them more, balanced out by those who live shorter and cost less.

pineapple

Of course there are pensions for single people. What do you think all us singletons live on? I get both a state and an occupational pension. Re the latter, I can nominate someone to get a lump sum if I die within so many years. Both pensions stop however.
I'm working on them agreeing to give it to the border collie..:j

tanith

Are you talking about a private or the State Pension? If its a private pension and it has provision for a percentage of your pension to be paid after your death (I'm sorry I don't know what its called) then you can nominate someone to receive this.

macman

Pretty ludicrous argument. It's like saying that if you insure your house for 20 years and don't make a claim, then it's unfair because you've wasted your money!
If you are single without dependents, then you chose a single life annuity when your pension matures. If not, you choose a joint life annuity (which obviously pays a lesser sum). Simple as that.
But, should you drop dead a day after retirement on a single life annuity, that's tough-there are no refunds.

dunstonh

Pensions are all single. They work under your NI number.

As a single person, if I die shortly after retirement, my estate would receive nothing. This does not seem fair......

Pensions are a trust based arrangement and paid outside of the estate.

gadgetmind

Caz123 wrote: »

Does anyone know if there is a pension for single people? As a single person, if I die shortly after retirement, my estate would receive nothing. This does not seem fair......

Assuming you're talking about a private pension, where you have saved money in a pension to fund your retirement, then your estate gets the pot if you die, but this is subject to pretty high levels of tax. However, if you have retired, and take out an annuity, then the income dies with you.

jamesd

Caz123 wrote: »

As a single person, if I die shortly after retirement, my estate would receive nothing. This does not seem fair......

What you have described is a property for some types of pension income. Here's a list and what can be done about it:

1. Personal pensions, where you choose and can change the investments. Many people choose to buy an annuity with this pension pot. It has not been required to buy an annuity for several years now, so if you want to have a pension pot that can be inherited after you die, just don't buy an annuity. Take an income from the investments instead. It's called income drawdown. It's also potentially very beneficial to couples, because 100% of the pot can be inherited by a spouse, without reducing the income while both are alive.

2. Work pensions that are related to salary in some way, without investments that you can change. Some work pensions offer benefits for spouses. This is a feature of the scheme and the solution is to try to persuade the company offering the scheme that it's a bad idea to make the single workers suffer reduced incomes to subsidise the couples. It might be worth noting that single pensioners tend to be worse off in retirement than pensioner couples and may well be the more needy group of employees.

3. State pensions. The state pensions have some provisions for spouses. You could contact your local MP and ask them to campaign to eliminate the ability of a spouse to receive a pension based on the contributions of their partner.

The main issue is annuity purchase and that's easy to deal with by not buying an annuity.

Loughton_Monkey

Caz123 wrote: »

Does anyone know if there is a pension for single people? As a single person, if I die shortly after retirement, my estate would receive nothing. This does not seem fair......

Sadly you have a serious misconceptions on what pensions are.

All pensions are accrued for an individual. So the short answer to your question is 'yes'.

When you 'take' your pension, you have options, one of which is to buy an annuity. To put it simply, if all people your age die on average at age 85, then some will die at 70, others will live to 100. Those who die early are subsidising those who live longer. THis is what annuities are all about! It is extremely fair.

Look at the 'reverse' of pensions - Life Assurance. Some will die the day after the first premium and the estate will get £100K. Others will live to 95 having paid £150K in premiums. How could it work if it was 'fair' [by your definition]? Everyone who dies early gets a huge payout. Those who don't die get all their premiums back?

If you don't like the concept of 'Life Assurance' don't buy any. If you don't like the concept of 'Annuities' then don't buy one [use drawdown]. But that's got nothing whatsoever with saving for retirement within a pension.

Caz123

I didn't appreciate that pensions are not 'savings' - I was talking about company pension by the way. I guess I thought that private/company pensions would pay back, although I can see that state pension is different.

I need to get my head around all your comments so thanks to everyone. I am a widow aged 54 with one daughter - thinking of her if I die early! Will now embark on a bit more research.

brianrhill

dunstonh wrote: »

Pensions are a trust based arrangement and paid outside of the estate.

unless the pension was not taken (crystalised) at the selected or normal retirement date, in which case HMRC take the view that it potentially does form part of the estate - no worries unless you are likely to be in excess of your Nil Rate Band though.