SINGLE

Thrugelmir

Are you in a public or private DB scheme? 

Mnd

Ceme3000 said:

So the pension 'winner' is the married man who lives to 100, who has a wife 50 years younger, who also lives to 100! 

My scheme has thought about this. If there is a 10 year difference between the member and the spouse, then there is a reduction in the survivors benefit 

kinger101

Agree with others. Don't see what you're losing out on.  There's no spouse to miss out on the survivor pension.

xylophone

Not that I'm in it but I believe I have read on here that the Civil Service pension does give a rebate of sorts for single people?

This was a provision in the old Classic Pension Scheme.

https://www.civilservicepensionscheme.org.uk/members/classic-scheme-guide/

Your pension, together with your pay, forms part of your total benefits package. You must contribute a percentage of your pay towards the cost of providing benefits for your widow, widower or surviving civil partner after your death (the Widow(er)s’ Pension Scheme – WPS). In addition you will pay a percentage of your pensionable earnings, towards your personal benefits and your employer will also make a contribution. See the Civil Service Pensions website for current contribution rates. Your employer takes your contributions from your pay before working out the tax, so you will automatically receive full income tax relief. This is subject to HMRC limits.

Your contributions are mandatory and apply to all members regardless of marital status. It is not possible to opt out of this arrangement unless you opt out of the scheme entirely. However, if you are single when you retire, you may be entitled to a refund of some or all of your WPS contributions. Appendix A gives more information about WPS refunds.

If you are eligible for a refund, of some or all of your WPS contributions, this will only include the contributions you have paid at the rate of 1.5%. From 1 April 2012, you may have been paying additional contributions above this rate. These, additional contributions are not refunded as part of a WPS contribution refund.

If you complete 45 years’ service, you will continue to pay the WPS contribution at a rate of 1.5%.

However, you will no longer have to pay the additional contributions above 1.5%.

hyubh

ronnies6 said:

I felt it was discrimitive as I felt as I am putting in the same as others I should have the right as others to leave it to my nominated person. As for rules this was not in the rules that  I received.

I am 99.99% confident that won't be true. Where rules have changed over the past 20 years, it's in the other direction (public sector schemes into the 2000s had hard rules on survivor pensions being for widowed spouses specifically, which then stopped on remarriage).

Back in the heyday of DB pensions, so-called 'dependant' pensions were literally that: for economic dependants of the deceased member. So, widows would typically have a pension by right (social expectation of being a housewife or only earning 'pin money'), but widowers would only be due a pension if 'incapacitated' and so previously financially dependant on their wife. Well, due a pension if the scheme was suitably enlightened - widower GMP rights only came in a decade after contracting out itself was introduced.

DT2001

.What happens if you’re married and your partner dies before you, can you then nominate someone else?
Is there an age limit otherwise the nominee could be 1 and the liability will be long term for the fund.

Any change would increase the funds liabilities and maybe lead to reduced benefits for all Etc. 

A pension benefit ideally should support the employee in retirement and anyone that they (the pensioner) helped financially.
I suspect in the documentation you were given it would have had a caveat referring to the funds rules. This was certainly true in my case relating to GMP. 

Ciprico

We all pay into state pension - many won't live long enough to get any of that back, and that can't be passed onto dependents.
You could say that is discriminatory to people who smoke, or eat too much, or spend too much time in front of computer screens and not exercising !
We're all discriminated against in some form

Sunnylifeover50plan

This is interesting - in principle could the OP not enter into a civil partnership (the new one) with someone - sign a pre-nup so that the only asset passing to his or her "civil partner" is his pension benefit upon his death. This could create a market whereby the OP could be paid a "dowry" by the future partner which he could spend on a fast car. The only benefit his partner would receive would be the pension benefit paid upon his death? which depending on the age of the partner could be fairly considerable?
Do I win a prize?  

LionelChuttleworth

Sunnylifeover50plan said:

This is interesting - in principle could the OP not enter into a civil partnership (the new one) with someone - sign a pre-nup so that the only asset passing to his or her "civil partner" is his pension benefit upon his death. This could create a market whereby the OP could be paid a "dowry" by the future partner which he could spend on a fast car. The only benefit his partner would receive would be the pension benefit paid upon his death? which depending on the age of the partner could be fairly considerable?
Do I win a prize?  

Not if I buy him a fast car and he outlives me.

Or, worse still, the car attracts some airhead woman who he then marries due to the "benefits"

Lummoxley

To be honest, as member of a DB scheme I've often considered the lesser benefits package for single people as slightly unfair, alongside my schemes practice of men having a higher % reduction than women for taking their pension early.

I understand the arguments in both cases but both give me a gut feeling of "wrongness".

However they are minor quibbles to me compared to the generosity of the scheme v's a DC one.