Is your spouse always the beneficiary for a pension?

[GottaFeeling]

Assuming you're married.

An acquaintance has a small private income which is from her late father's pension. He was divorced and named his daughter as next if kin. She's an adult with a good income of her own, if that makes a difference. Single, also, if that's relevant.

Do these survivor pensions last for the lifetime of the survivor? This woman could outlive her dad by 70 years, which I suppose a spouse could to, but that would be less usual.

Anyway, it set me thinking that maybe DH & I should put Dc as next of kin on our pensions. We each have our own pensions and income so don't "need" the dependant's pension and if we named DC, the pension would, most likely, pay out for longer.

Or have I got the wrong end of the stick completely?

Hi. It wouldn't usually be allowable to pay a survivor's pension to the original member's child past the age of 18 (23 if still in education/training) - the exception is if the child was dependant on the parent because of disability.

What is possible though (and may have happened in your friend's case) is for a lump sum to be paid to a child, which they could use to secure an income if they wanted. The options around this would depend on what sort of pension you have and the rules of your specific scheme but as a general point the rules were changed from 6 April this year to make it easier and more tax efficient to pass the value in some pensions on if you die before using the money up yourself.

recently retired and all my pension forms reviewed in Canada. options other than spouse were available. but it significantly affected the amount of pension you receive as does your spouses age!! yes age if my spouse was younger and therefore could outlive me the survivor portion would be less. same if you name a child.