Have you accessed "bereavement benefits"?

andrea_bbtt

Nearly three years ago my mother died, aged 91yrs. As she was on benefits I assumed she would be covered for her cremation costs!!! How wrong I was!! They only gave me £1500 and the bill was over £2000. I am on pension credits and had to pay the balance myself, which caused me a great deal of stress at a time when I needed all my strength.

Yorkshireman99

andrea_bbtt wrote: »

Nearly three years ago my mother died, aged 91yrs. As she was on benefits I assumed she would be covered for her cremation costs!!! How wrong I was!! They only gave me £1500 and the bill was over £2000. I am on pension credits and had to pay the balance myself, which caused me a great deal of stress at a time when I needed all my strength.

I am sorry it is too late for you but people need to be aware that they are not, repeat not, responsible for the costs of funerals other than their own. The hospital where the person died or the local authority are legally obliged to pay. They are not allowed to demand payment by relatives.

Victoria_Meldrew

My husband died almost 3 years ago now and I was unaware that I could claim anything until I read the Which publication "What to do when someone dies". No-one told me anything about any benefits I could claim and I found the whole business very complicated and stressful. The benefits information needs to be in a user-friendly form and should be sent to the bereaved automatically. When someone dies the bereaved are in a very bad place and unable to think clearly and having to hunt around for this information makes matters even worse.

just_me_2

My husband died suddenly and we had two daughters aged 15 and 20. As he was working and we had some savings I did not think we would get the bereavement payment which must be claimed within 3 months. He died in hospital so I was given a booklet but I was finding it difficult to concentrate and only realised just in time to claim. However, I was not treated with compassion by the JobCentre staff and they were not trained to give the correct information.
I was also able to claim the 'widowed parent allowance'. This was very helpful and I felt it also recognised that my daughter needed lots of support. In receiving that I was able to be there for her - previously she had always caught the bus to school - now she struggled to face the day so I needed to be with her and drive her to school which helped her. She needed more cuddles and having suddenly lost her father needed me to be around. Although time helped to heal, waves of grief would return frequently, so being able to be there for her, was a priority over earning more so with the allowance I was able to continue with a little part-time work.

What I found was the attitude of organisations I had to deal with having recently been bereaved. Also my husband had always looked after the financial things as it needs to be a one person job so I was on a steep learning curve.

Our car and the car insurance was in my husband's name as they can only be in one name. I had expected that when I rang the insurance company they would transfer it to me, as I was a named driver. Instead they cancelled it and when I asked how I could take my daughter to a dance class that afternoon I was told not to drive my car as if I was stopped I could be fined up to £1000 for having no insurance and two points on my licence! For about another £300 I could have the insurance for just me as the driver whereas previously it had been for both my husband and myself driving and it had been renewed the previous month. Understandably, I wanted to shop around but with the added grief and no prior knowledge of what options I needed it took me three weeks to buy new insurance. In that time I had the car transferred to my name and received an accompanying letter from the DVLA to say that I must have insurance even if it was not on the road. This, when they knew the reason for the change of owner. In the case of death, I consider all insurances should be continued for some time rather than immediately cancelled when you ring up.

Sometime later after the house and mortgage had been transferred to my name, I wanted to change to a fixed rate mortgage. On many occasions the bank transferred my phone calls between the mortgage and bereavement sections with neither being able to resolve why my mortgage did not allow changes. After a couple of months I was told to get a letter from my lawyer, at my cost but for no apparent reason, so they could give me a fixed rate which reduced my mortgage by £200 per month. The delay cost me hundreds of pounds. I could understand them needing a letter before the house and mortgage was transferred to me, but why did they need it afterwards?

I also think that banks should be required to allow interest-only mortgages as of right to those who are widowed for some years, especially if there are children, provided the interest-only can be paid. There are many changes to adjust to. Some widows would accept that the principle will not be paid off but if they can have time to adapt to the changes they already face this would be beneficial. It would help them to remain in the property until their children are financially independent before they have to downsize or begin principle-payments again, which their adult children may then be able to contribute to.

The single person Council Tax notices should have contained explanations of why they changed.

I know this forum was about bereavement benefits but I would hope that the MP's would extend their brief to include the attitude and responsibilities of organisations to those bereaved.

Former_MSE_Will

Hi everyone,

Thank you very much for sharing your experiences with us on the forum. The comments before this post will be sent to the MPs in the Work and Pensions Committee.

Please feel free to continue the discussion, but no further responses will be sent to the MPs.

Polly12345

I too have lost my husband who was 60 I am also 60 I received bereavement benefit for 1year now am living off work pension now have been informed I can't claim my husbands additional pension in 2020 because it is going to be phased out it's so unfair that my beautiful husband worked all his for nothing

GwylimT

My first wife died in her early twenties, as our son had been adopted for less than six months I was unable to claim widowed parents allowance.

missbiggles1

GwylimT wrote: »

My first wife died in her early twenties, as our son had been adopted for less than six months I was unable to claim widowed parents allowance.

Now that really is shocking - how long before would the adoption have needed to take place for you to qualify?

Lesley_04

My husband died 15 months ago after only 3.4 years retirement. I am still working so we had two incomes, my income is on the cusp on 40% tax. When he died his government pension stopped as was replaced for one year by a widows pension. He had a private pension which moved to me. Both are taxed at 40% so instead of 2 incomes for the bills I have had my income and 60 of his. Now the widows benefit has ceased I have approx. 30% after tax of his income. The private pension reverts to 50% of the original value after 5 years on death so in April I will only have 50% of the private pension which will still be taxed at 40% leaving me with about 15% of the income that my husband used to have in pensions. I cannot touch his private pension, we had no choices to take the money and invest when he retired. He invested approx. £130k in his private pension and I am going to get less than the basic interest rate. I wish the Government would hurry up on their promise to access invested pension to remove invested private pension without penalties. This should include the ability of surviving partners / widow(ers) to cancel the pension for a refund of the investment. Should there be any reduction on return such as my husband pension which is reducing to 50% of his pension payments the full investment should be returned not just 50%. Why do the Government this it is okay for pension companies to keep the value of these investments when they have paid such menial returns. Surviving partners need the ability to collect these investments in full so we can decide what to do with the funds instead of lining greedy pension providers pockets and seeing the hard earned investment of over 45 years hard work of our partners go down the drain. My husband worked for a pension to look after us in our retirement, we should have the right to ensure the funds do just that by having the ability to withdraw the funds ASAP without penalties for our and our families future. My bills are the same, my choice is to move from our home to reduce the bills but why should I face that situation. 2 incomes v 1 income + 15% does not equate. Please act now!!

GwylimT

missbiggles1 wrote: »

Now that really is shocking - how long before would the adoption have needed to take place for you to qualify?

Six months.