Advice on Royal London GAR after death

dunstonh

keyring88 wrote: »

I think he was able to take out the pension early, due to his cancer diagnosis in September. Indeed he took another lump sum from another pension he had, again tax-free.
I don't believe he used an advisor and just advised RL.

Sadly, that was probably a wrong decision by him. However, unless Royal London volunteer to unwind it, there is no comeback.

atush

keyring88 wrote: »

Just read through, indeed he did take some money tax free as a lump sum. Then purchased the annuity for the remaining monies in the 'pot'.
So she'll receive this monthly amount for the rest of her life.

Double check this. Many choose to take a single life annuity instead of one that pays out to a spouse after death. As it pays more to begin with.

Aretnap

keyring88 wrote: »

I think he was able to take out the pension early, due to his cancer diagnosis in September. Indeed he took another lump sum from another pension he had, again tax-free.
I don't believe he used an advisor and just advised RL.

If he was able to access his pension early presumably it was because he had been diagnosed as terminally ill. If so then as duntsonh suggests taking an annuity (even with the GAR and a 50% spousal benefit) seems like an odd choice. It may be that he chose it because it was the best choice, in the circumstances, offered by the specific scheme he was in. However he could have transferred his pot to another provider which would have given him more options, such as an annuity which would have continued paying 100% to your mum, or not taking an annuity at all and leaving the bulk of the money in the pension for your mum to take tax-free on his death.

An adviser would have taken him through these other options, but unfortunately as above, unless RL can be persuaded to make a goodwill gesture there's nothing to be done about it now. (Unless it turns out that he did take advice, in which case it would be worth establishing what advice he received and why he was advised to do this).