Death grant
If you die after you have retired, payment of your pension benefits will stop. The benefits that are payable will depend on how long you have been receiving the pension for and when you left the scheme.
The death grant may be affected if you have active membership elsewhere in the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS).
You can let us know who you want to receive any death grant that may be due. If you have not already made your wishes known or you wish to update your nomination you can do this either through My Pension Online or by completing, a Death Grant Nomination form and send it to the Pensions team.
Left on or after 1 April 2014
A death grant will be paid if, when you die, your pension has been paid for less than 10 years.
If at retirement you chose to take standard benefits from the scheme, the death grant is 10 times the pension at date of death less the amount of pension that has already been paid.
If at retirement you chose to take a bigger lump sum, the death grant is 10 times the value of the pension before it was exchanged for lump sum, less the extra lump sum less, the amount of pension already paid.
Left on or after 1 April 2008
A death grant will be paid if, when you die, the pension has been paid for less than 10 years.
The death grant would be 10 times the pension at date of death, less the amount of pension that has already been paid.
Left on or before 31 March 2008
A death grant will be paid if, when you die, less than five years pension has been paid. If you left before 1 April 1998 there is no guarantee of a death grant, it will depend on the amount of service you had in the scheme.
The death grant would be five times the pension at date of death less the amount of pension that has already been paid.
Survivor’s pension
A pension is payable to your husband, wife or civil partner and if you left the scheme on or after 1 April 2008 and are eligible, a pension for your cohabiting partner.
The survivor’s pension is payable immediately after your death for the rest of their life and will be adjusted every year in line with the cost of living.
Eligible cohabiting partner
An eligible cohabiting partner is a partner you are living with who, at the date of your death, has met all of these conditions for a continuous period of at least two years:
- you and your cohabiting partner are, and have been, free to marry each other or enter into a civil partnership with each other, and
- you and your cohabiting partner have been living together as if you were a married couple or civil partners, and
- neither you nor your cohabiting partner has been living with someone else as if you / they were a married couple or civil partners, and
- either your cohabiting partner is and has been dependent on you, or you are and have been financially interdependent on each other.
Your partner is financially dependent on you if you have the highest income. Financially interdependent means that you rely on your joint finances to support your standard of living. It doesn’t mean that you need to be contributing equally. For example, if your partner’s income is more than yours, he or she may pay the mortgage and most of the bills and you may pay for the weekly shopping. We will ask for evidence of joint finances for the two years prior to the date of death such as:
- Joint mortgage statements
- Joint bank statements
- Joint Council Tax statements
- Joint utility bills
- Joint house insurance policies
When you die, a survivor’s pension would be paid to your cohabiting partner if:
- all of the above conditions were met on your date of death, and
- your cohabiting partner satisfies the Fund that these conditions had been met for a continuous period of two years immediately before your death.
You don’t have to provide us with details of your cohabiting partner but, we recommend that you do so by completing the Nomination of Cohabiting Partner for Survivor's Pension form.
Please see LGPS Member website for further information.
Child's pension
A child's pension is due to any eligible child/children. The amount of pension depends on the number of children and whether a survivor’s pension will be paid. Where a pension is payable to two or more children the pension will be shared equally.
The LGPS member website provides further information on how survivor and children's benefits are calculated.