Death in service

[PragmaticWench]

DH and I are married, both have work pensions that offer Death In Service should we die whilst employed.

My question is, should one of us die and the other recieve the DIS lump sum, does the surviving partner also later receive pension payments in their old age, that the deceased would have received from their accumulated pension pot? Does the DIS get paid instead of later monthly pension payments?

I'm trying to work out where either of us would stand in this situation. We also both have life insurance policies so those would help.

There may be provision for widow/widower's pension but lower than the full amount.

It depends on the plans and it should be easy for you to get specific details. My DIS pays a lump sum plus annual pension to whoever I nominate (my partner obv). The pension is payable from the time of my death and not from the beneficiary's retirement.

Make sure you have wills as well though, even if you've completed a nomination of beneficiaries form.

You would need to check. DH gets 8x his salary plus pension contributions back but no widows pension. His old job was 3 x death in service plus widows pension

You need to check. A lot of defined benefit schemes (rare nowadays) are very generous and would pay a spouse's pension on death, so if, say, you died at 35 your DH may receive a spouse's pension from then until his death or remarriage. This could be 50% of the pension you would have received, based on your salary at date of death and service up until your retirement date.

Or if you have defined contribution schemes (more likely) it may just be that your contributions would be returned (I think).

You need to find out as there's a huge variation and to properly plan, you need to know what would happen.

Thank you for the responses, it seems we need to look at the details on each pension. I really want to be clear on it in my head as planning for the worst case scenario seems sensible, as unlikely as it may be to occur.