Claiming Husbands Pension

jmkc17

After watching your show with regards to Pensions and widows, I thought I would check on my Mums pension.

She is receiving the normal state pension plus £48.23 per month of my Dads State Pension

Dad died prior to reaching pension age was 57 (b. 1933) and died in 1991, Mum has not worked all her life  stopped in 1959 and then restarted in 1969 and has worked mainly full time since then, retiring at age 65 years (b 1936).

After seeing your show I did wonder what happened to Dads Pension i.e. national insurance contributions all his working life.  spoke with Government Pensions and they say Mum is only entitled to £48.23 of Dads state pension as she worked and has her own Pension not a married womens pension!  Is this right, wonder if you could advise on this.

Mum is now in a care home with costs over £7000 per month as she has Dementia and I am just trying to sort out more money to pay for the care home fees, and feel that watching your show and reading about this Mum should be receiving more of Dads Pension, as it seems so unfair that Dad worked all his life, died - mmm working for the Government too, and Mum is getting none of his pension!

eskbanker

jmkc17 said:

She is receiving the normal state pension plus £48.23 per month of my Dads State Pension

[...]

spoke with Government Pensions and they say Mum is only entitled to £48.23 of Dads state pension

[...]

it seems so unfair that Dad worked all his life, died - mmm working for the Government too, and Mum is getting none of his pension!

Which is it - none or £48.23?

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/married-women-missing-state-pension-boost/ is worth a read if you haven't already.

xylophone

After seeing your show I did wonder what happened to Dads Pension i.e. national insurance contributions all his working life.  spoke with Government Pensions and they say Mum is only entitled to £48.23 of Dads state pension as she worked and has her own Pension not a married womens pension!  Is this right, wonder if you could advise on this.

See from P 20 here for an explanation of the rules.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/181235/derived-inherited-entitlement.pdf

Your mother will have had entitlement to Basic State Pension on her own contributions - if she did not have enough full years for full entitlement, then her late spouse's contribution record would have been taken into consideration - from what you have said, your mother does now receive Full Basic (currently £141.85)?

She would also be entitled to her own Additional State Pension (Grad/SERPS) if she had accrued any and also to a proportion of her late spouse's Additional State Pension (see link).

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

It appears therefore that she is receiving all that she is due?

Mum is now in a care home with costs over £7000 per month as she has Dementia and I am just trying to sort out more money to pay for the care home fees,

You have checked that your mother is receiving Attendance Allowance?

And have you looked into the Nursing Care Component/Continuing Health Care?

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/social-care-and-support-guide/money-work-and-benefits/nhs-funded-nursing-care/

p00hsticks

Welcome to the forum.

It sounds like you are expecting Martin to personally read this - I'm afraid he won't. He sold this site some years ago and is only a figurehead for it. I beleive you can contact him via twitter or itv, but I don't have links.

Having said that there are some very knowledgable andf helpful people on this forum, who may be able to help.

 With your dad dying so young it's possible that he hadn't built up full entitlement to a State Pension himself (prior to 2010 a man needed 44 years NI to get the full basic pension amount) which might affect things.

Generally speaking a persons entitlement to a State Pension dies with them - it;s not a pot of money - but there are circumstances where spouses can inherit part of their deceased husbands pension, especially if they reached retirement age prior to the introduction of the new State Pension in 2016, as your mum did.

However, If she's already getting the full pension amount herself, plus some extra as a result of your dads NI record then I'm not sure she'd be entitled to any more, but I'm not an expert.

 You say that your father worked for the government - was he still working there at the time of his death ? It's possible that your omther would have received a death in service payment if so, and/or could be entitled to a spouses pension from them - have you looked into that at all ?

xylophone

You say that your father worked for the government - was he still working there at the time of his death ? It's possible that your omther would have received a death in service payment if so, and/or could be entitled to a spouses pension from them - have you looked into that at all ?

If the OP means that his father was a Civil Servant, I would have thought it very unlikely that his mother is not in receipt of a widow's pension.

She may also be entitled to an occupational pension of her own.

The OP might like to clarify.

Perhaps the OP could upload a copy of his mother's state pension statement (suitably redacted) to enable a more detailed comment.

Marcon

xylophone said:

You say that your father worked for the government - was he still working there at the time of his death ? It's possible that your omther would have received a death in service payment if so, and/or could be entitled to a spouses pension from them - have you looked into that at all ?

If the OP means that his father was a Civil Servant, I would have thought it very unlikely that his mother is not in receipt of a widow's pension.

She may also be entitled to an occupational pension of her own.

The OP might like to clarify.

Perhaps the OP could upload a copy of his mother's state pension statement (suitably redacted) to enable a more detailed comment.

OP - in case you've not met the term before, 'suitably redacted' (good advice!) simply means with any personal identifiers such as name/National Insurance number obscured.