USS widow's pension

kieraowl

Sadly my husband died while in active service at a university this summer.

When he died he had £72k in his investment builder. However, I have only been paid £27k of this as a 'discretionary lump sum'.

We honestly both thought that when we were saving in the investment builder, we were building a fund that was ours to use however we saw fit. We worked really hard to accumulate that money, and now it appears it's not ours after all?

Can anyone advise?

Woodstok2000

I'm sorry for your loss, and hope you are managing to get by ok.

The USS page says this:

What about your Investment Builder savings?

If you pass away with savings in the Investment Builder, what happens to these depends upon how you’ve built them up:

• Any contributions from you and your employer based upon earnings above the salary threshold will be credited back to USS because your life cover from the Retirement Income Builder is based upon your full salary, and not your salary up to the salary threshold.
• If any part of your Investment Builder pot is made up of contributions from you or your employer which are based upon earnings below the salary threshold, are additional contributions, or are benefits you’ve transferred in to USS from another pension arrangement, these benefits will be paid as a lump sum.

The salary threshold appears to be about £74,000, so it's the portion above that which goes back to USS.

Cornish_mum

Dear Kieraowl,

I am so sorry for your loss.

Just to add to the post above, the salary threshold was much lower (~£40,000) between April 2022 and March 2024 and many members built up a chunk of their Investment Builder during that time under normal contribution rules. Your husband’s annual statements should include a breakdown of the normal and additional contributions to the Investment builder pot.

USS definitely can make errors, as can HEI communication with them, so it might be worth double checking that there figures are all correct.