PCSPS Premium Scheme Survivor Pension

pinnks

Has anyone looked in detail at the survivor pension provisions for those who transferred from PCSPS Classic to Premium on 1 October 2002 and who are pensioner members when they die? 

I believe this is dealt with in rule L. 26 in Part L of the 2002 Section.  Rule L. 28 also interests me, and is what brought me to the issue, as a friend who remarried recently asked about the impact on their survivor pension (not PCSPS) and it got me wondering about my wife’s position should I peg it and should she then re-marry – not that either of those is (hopefully) in the offing, lol.  But forewarned and all that…  L. 28 does not appear to apply to survivor pensions under L.26.  Anyone have thoughts on that?

Anyway, Death Benefits in general are dealt with in Part E of the Section.  For those who joined Premium being newly employed after 1 October 2002, the survivor pension rules are “simple”, i.e. 37.5% of the deceased’s uncommuted pension, even if they commuted anything for a lump sum.  This is described in scheme booklets etc and I had assumed that that would be the case for those of us who transferred across on 1 October 2002 but on reading Part L, “1972 Section Leavers: Reserved Joiners”, that appears not to be the case.  Further, even though most people reaching this stage for the next few years are likely to have transferred in 2002, I cannot find anything on the scheme web pages etc.

Rule L. 26 appears to be designed to split the survivor’s pension into 2 parts, i.e. Part A, being a survivor pension based on the Classic rules for reckonable service up to 30 September 2002 and Part B, being one based on the Premium rules for 1 October 2002 until retirement.  The survivor pension is made up of A plus B.

A is 50% of the deceased’s “assumed spouse service old pension”, which I understand as a pension under the Classic rules for pre-1 October 2002 service.

B is written as “37.5% of the amount of the pension to which the member was entitled at the date of death, less the old service pension”.  Mathematically, the only way this makes sense (to me) is if it should be read as 37.5% x (the amount of the pension to which the member was entitled at the date of death minus the old service pension), though an alternative  reading could be, “37.5% of the amount of the pension to which the member was entitled at the date of death, from which one then deducts the amount of the old service pension”.

My old and new service periods were similar – 14+ years old (actual, not reduced on transfer) and 16+ years new. 

A straightforward 37.5% of my uncommuted pension (as of 2019, though one would use the date of death) would be about £16,500.  If one assumes that L. 26 requires one to deduct the old service pension from the actual pension and then take 37.5%, to which A is added, the survivor pension increases to about £18,000 (something of a guestimate as I made assumptions about what that old rules pension would be, rather than wading through every step in the calculation).  However, if the correct reading of L. 26 is to take 37.5% of the actual pension and to then deduct the old service pension from that, the survivor pension is less than £10,000 and doesn’t appear to accord with what L. 26 is trying to achieve.

Any thoughts would be gratefully received.

Apologies if this has been covered elsewhere but I did search the forum without success.