Rights to pension after death of same sex spouse

DRS1

OP I suppose you would have mentioned if you were in a civil partnership before you married.  But if you were then it would obviously be a good idea to let the scheme know that.

You say he nominated you to receive the spouse's pension on his death.  May I ask when he made the nomination?  It would not usually be necessary to nominate a spouse but it sometimes happens that the rules allow a member to nominate an alternate financial dependant and I am wondering if he did that (before you married).  You would not think they would be refusing to pay the spouse's pension in that case but maybe it passed someone by.

dunstonh

 Can I challenge this decision?

Sorry for you loss.

A lot has been said already. So, I am just adding to the answers.   There will be no discrimination as civil partnership gains the same rights as marriage.  Same sex or otherwise.

This will be purely down to scheme rules or selections made on retirement.

We can assume that these are not pensions in drawdown as the fund will follow the expression of wish.  
So, it will either be a scheme pension or an annuity.

Scheme pensions will have rules that will either state the death benefits.  Those rules may state spouse at time of retirement, or they may state any spouse.   Some scheme pensions may give a choice and pay a slightly higher income if spouse benefit is removed or restricted to only current spouse.

Annuities give the annuitant the choice of the current spouse or any spouse.  Again, any spouse tends to result in a lower income than current spouse.      

So, if the type of pension income only includes the spouse at the time of pension income commencement, then those are the terms of the income.

Can you confirm what type of pension it is and if its a DB pension scheme income, then you can name the scheme as often the scheme details are published online.

squirrelpie

Andrewandjohn said:

My husband died recently. He was 62.  He had 2 workplace pensions. He retired early in 2017 and was receiving both pensions monthly. He had nominated me, his spouse, to receive a widowers pension for both of these pensions. We married in April 2018, but had been living together as a couple since 2004. Obviously it wasn’t possible for us to marry until same sex marriage became legalised. One of the pensions has declined to pay out because our marriage took place after he had begun to receive the pension. Can I challenge this decision?

AIUI, same sex marriage became possible in England in March 2014. So you had several years before he took his pensions to investigate the scheme rules and arrange your affairs to suit. I'm sorry for your loss, and I hope you do find a way to challenge the interpretation of the scheme rule. 

Marcon

Andrewandjohn said:

My husband died recently. He was 62.  He had 2 workplace pensions. He retired early in 2017 and was receiving both pensions monthly. He had nominated me, his spouse, to receive a widowers pension for both of these pensions. We married in April 2018, but had been living together as a couple since 2004. Obviously it wasn’t possible for us to marry until same sex marriage became legalised. One of the pensions has declined to pay out because our marriage took place after he had begun to receive the pension. Can I challenge this decision?

OP - I am conscious that you have just lost your beloved partner of over 20 years. This seems to have become an overlong thread, with a fair amount of repetition, and several people asking you to provide further information (doing so won't enable anyone to give a definitive answer on this forum).

I think your original question was answered in the first four posts: 

• there is no unlawful discrimination where a straight couple who were neither married nor in a civil partnership would have been treated the same way
• you need to ask the scheme to provide an extract from the rules covering who qualifies for a spousal pension when the member dies, including any possible provision in the scheme's rules in relation to unmarried partners. 

If you aren't happy with the response you get to the second point (ie you think the rules have been incorrectly applied - simply not liking what the rules say won't change them), then you can make a formal complaint. You would do so using the scheme's own Internal Dispute Resolution Procedure, a copy of which can be supplied by the scheme's administrators, if this is an occupational pension scheme; or (if it's an annuity) the insurer's complaints procedure. 

Cus

Did your partner specify on the pension that you should receive the widow pension before 2017?

If so, did he not know that you need to be married?

Nothing described so far suggests any discrimination, not that you are suggesting it (although you mentioned the inability to marry)

If you feel somehow hard done by and that you sense an unfairness due to the same sex situation then question it. If you don't ask you don't get. Unfortunately it all seems fair. Sorry for your loss.

Andrewandjohn

I received a response from the pension scheme…
A Qualifying Spouse`s pension shall not be payable to a Qualifying Spouse to whom the Member was not married and was not in civil partnership with at the date of retirement or leaving service if earlier, where applicable.`
if this is indeed what the rules say, then they are simply applying the rules correctly. I suppose that I feel that we were misled, in that my husband had received Personal statements of benefits prior to his retirement which state….
Death after Retirement 
In the event of your death after your retirement there would be payable:-
A spouse’s /civil partnership pension (if survived by) of ……..£@#%#@ p a 
(a pension for dependants may be payable in certain circumstances)
This lead us to believe that the only requirement was that we be married. No mention of only paying out where marriage has been contracted prior to retirement. Of course, you could say that it was up to us to examine the rule book, but this feels like a convenient (for the scheme) loophole. I wonder how many retirees decide to formalise their relationships to ensure their spouse has some financial security in the event of their death, only for the spouse to discover that getting married wasn’t the solution they thought it would be. I know that my husband would be furious if he knew. 

Silvertabby

My sympathies.

Are you able to post the name of this scheme? And the date your partner left, which may be before he started to draw his pension.   It may be possible that the scheme rules do preclude all post retirement marriages - but most schemes use an entitlement date of 1978 or 1988.  ie, service after those dates counts towards a post retirement marriage/civil partner's survivors pension.  

Shimrod

Andrewandjohn said:

Death after Retirement 
In the event of your death after your retirement there would be payable:-
A spouse’s /civil partnership pension (if survived by) of ……..£@#%#@ p a 
(a pension for dependants may be payable in certain circumstances)

Are you able to demonstrate any financial dependency? It will depend on the exact wording in the rules, but my scheme for example says "in the opinion of the Trustee has been wholly or partially dependent upon the Member for maintenance and support". For us, this is normally demonstrated through the use of shared bills and bank accounts.

Andrewandjohn

It’s the Arriva Passenger Services Pension Scheme. He joined in about 2005 and left in 2017 when he decided to retire early and start taking his pension. We married 9 months later. We had (for at least 15 years) a “bills” account which we both paid into monthly to cover house and food expenses. 

DRS1

Well I could not find the rules for that scheme but I did find a member's booklet
arriva-passenger-services-pension-scheme.pdf
I hope it is the right scheme - Arriva have a whole bunch of them and this one has National in the name.

Oh and this booklet was updated in 2018 - after he retired so maybe it is not the one that applies to him.

Anyway page 10 talks about the pension payable on death to a Partner.  There are a couple of "important" points to note but they relate to remarriage and age gaps not the date of your marriage.
Partner is defined on page 2 as 

" Partner means either your spouse, your registered civil partner, and any adult partner in a relationship similar to marriage (whether opposite sex or same sex) with the member who in the opinion of the Trustee is (or was at the date of the member’s death) wholly or partially financially dependent on the member."

I think you should ask the administrators for a copy of the rules and for them to tell you which rule they are relying on to say you don't qualify (Rules are usually very long documents).