What happens to your state pension when you die.

Godiva500

I have need some basic info please, as we are trying to get our paperwork in order.
My husband and I are both 76, and have our own full government pensions. What happens when one of us dies? Does that persons pension automatically stop when they are notified? Is there any further payment to the one left eg a lump sum to help with funeral, or any widows extra payment etc etc. I have looked on gov.uk but it’s not very clear.
We are not entitled to any  benefits. 
many thanks for any help.

Linton

It all depends.....
The main part of the State Pension is not inheritable but as you both reached State Pension Age pre 2016 you are under the old rules  which do provide some inheritance.  Assuming you did not marry after April 2016, some parts of the State Pension are inheritable....
1) 50% or more of the additional SP from SERPs/ASP/S2P etc forming part of the deceased's total SP.
2) Part or all of any extra SP being paid because the deceased deferred their SP.
3) If the survivor is not receiving a full state pension because of insufficient NI, extra SP may be claimed based on the deceased's contributions.

The advice from the Government website is that the surviving spouse should contact the Pension Service, see https://www.gov.uk/contact-pension-service.  The rules are somewhat complex depending on exact date of birth of both partners.

Stubod

..when my dad passed away a few years ago, (both pension age well before 2016), spouse did not get anything extra but was entitled to pensions credits assuming she had less than about £24k in savings on a sliding scale down to £14k ('ish)....

xylophone

My husband and I are both 76, and have our own full government pensions. 

You will have reached SPA in around 2005 and your husband in around 2011.

 It seems that you  each receive a full basic state pension in your own right.  Your full basic state pension component will not change on the death of a spouse but it may be that there will be some inheritable additional pension.  In connection with  this see 

https://www.gov.uk/additional-state-pension/inheriting.

Are you/your spouse in receipt of pensions from "contracted out" pension schemes?

 If the  deceased was contracted-out of SERPS at any point in the tax years 1978-9 to 1996-7 – the  deceased's occupational pension scheme  could be responsible for providing the survivor with 50% of the deceased’s Guaranteed Minimum Pension (GMP) in lieu of additional pension – in the case of widowers and surviving civil partners this liability is restricted to GMPs accrued between 1988-9 and 1996-7;

  If the survivor has entitlement to additional pension in  his /her own right, his/her combined entitlement to  this additional pension and any ‘inherited’ additional pension (or GMP paid in lieu of additional State Pension by a contracted-out occupational pension scheme) is capped at an amount equivalent to the maximum additional pension entitlement that a person reaching pension age in the year in which entitlement to the inherited additional pension arises.  

Below may be of interest in this connection

 https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/pensions/article-4739846/Why-state-pension-reduced-husband-died.html

In the event that  the survivor is left  with very low income after the death of a spouse, pension credit might be available.

https://www.ageuk.org.uk/bp-assets/globalassets/barnet/original-blocks/our-services/ia/fs48_pension_credit_fcs.pdf

3card

something else that should be pointed out.
When a person who has reached state retirement age people may receive a letter informing them that an over payment of the state pension has been made and the figure of the overpayment will be stated in the along with the information as to how this can be paid back
It should be pointed out that there is no legal requirement for this to be paid back and this can be totally ignored if paying it back is going to cause some hardship.
This happened with both my mom and dad, we paid back my dads even though i didnt agree with the figure requested
I didnt pay my moms because she didnt have much money left after being a self funder in her care home for a few years

Just thought i would mention this 

TCA

Bumping an old thread, rather than start a new one on the same topic.

With the recent death of my father, the rules on the government website appear to indicate that my mother can inherit a portion of dad's additional state pension and graduated retirement benefit and can possibly use some of dad's national insurance contributions to boost her pension to the full amount for the old state pension.

The website asks you to call the pension service and I did, but gave up today after half an hour in a phone queue.

I just wanted to ask if anyone had any recent experience of this and knew whether this was something that would happen automatically anyway, given they've been informed of the death already via the Tell Us Once service?

Or do you have to actually ask/claim for it?

Thanks.

molerat

The system should sort it automatically as long as the system is aware of the relationship, one of the questions when applying for SP is spouse details.  Unfortunately there is though history of the system failing so a belt and braces approach is likely a good idea.

TCA

Thanks, that's good to know. I'll try my luck again over the phone in a few days time.

MX5huggy

Hit that phone at 8am, I used to sit in a government department from 8 till 9 getting paid to answer the phone, it very rarely rang. 

MEL1981

TCA said:

Thanks, that's good to know. I'll try my luck again over the phone in a few days time.

We are in the same position. Dad passed away and both reached state pension age before the 2016 cut off. I've tried to contact them too but failed until this morning.

The very helpful woman did say it's all automated but as I phoned she can push it through quicker (not by much but longer than it would have taken)...a few weeks or so.

Mel

drumtochty

Please phone at 7:59 am to have a chance of getting answered. It will probably take a morning or two to to get a quick phone pick up from the DWP. You can be ages if you do not get a quick phone pick up.