What happens to pensions and investments when your partner dies?
We work through each pension and investment your partner held, and what passes to you under its rules.
We work through each pension and investment your partner held, and what passes to you under its rules.
Each pension and investment passes under its own rules. Pensions follow the scheme's rules and any nomination your partner made. Joint accounts pass to you. Other investments pass under the will, or the intestacy rules if there is no will.
Including old workplace schemes. The Pension Tracing Service on GOV.UK finds contact details for schemes you do not know about.
Life policies and death-in-service through an employer may pay a lump sum.
In your partner's name and in joint names. Joint accounts pass to you.
Each needs a death certificate, and tells you what is payable and to whom.
£3,500 and then £350 a month for 18 months if you have children or were pregnant; otherwise £2,500 and then £100 a month. Claim within three months of the death to get the full amount.
You may be able to inherit part of it, depending on when each of you reached State Pension age. The Pension Service can tell you.
From April 2027, unused pension funds count towards the estate for inheritance tax. Pensions left to a husband, wife or civil partner remain exempt, but the change matters for what passes to your children after you.
Ask each provider to explain from the beginning. Banks, pension schemes and insurers have bereavement teams for this.
A health check with an adviser lists everything you now hold, its current value and what each part is for, at no cost to you.
Claim Bereavement Support Payment within three months of the death to get the full amount.
If they died before 75, normally not, provided the money is paid or set up within two years. If they died at 75 or over, it is taxed as your income when you take it.
It keeps its tax-free status for up to three years while the estate is dealt with. A husband, wife or civil partner can also pay in an extra amount up to its value.
Often, if the scheme's rules allow it and your partner named you in an expression of wish. Under the intestacy rules an unmarried partner receives nothing from the rest of the estate, so a will matters.
That depends on what each one is and on your own tax position, and an adviser looks at it as part of the advice. Find out what there is first.
Unused pensions count towards an estate for inheritance tax from April 2027.
Independent Financial Adviser
Independent Financial Adviser
The first conversation takes about twenty minutes and is at no cost to you. Tell us what is on your mind: a pension you have lost track of, a fixed rate ending, a will you keep meaning to write.