Inheritance question

[Robin198]

My dad died 6 years ago. His will etc was sorted with no issue then however I was in conversation with a friend this eve and she asked how we settled his pensions. The short answer to this is we didnt.

I know he had 2 occupational pensions and 1 private one. I have no idea if we should have done something with these at the time. Can anybody shed any light? It didn’t eve cross my mind at the time. Does a pension ‘die’ with a person? My DD was divided from DM but with 2 children.

Depends on the pension.
They would die with the person or a smaller percentage would go to their wife if they had one.
But you would need to check...

It partly depends on the pension.
Usually pensions have nominated beneficiaries if they can be passed on. They fall outside the person's estate.
I would contact the pension companies to ask.

You'd need to contact the pension companies and work out what kind of pensions they were.
Defined benefit pensions either die with the person they are paid to, or in some cases a spousal pension is payable - but only to legal spouse or civil partner, not to anyone else.
Defined contribution pensions can often be left to other beneficiaries but they don't form part of the estate so aren't on a will etc. Who they go to is determined by trustees of the pension scheme, although the person whose pension it is may have sent the trustees a statement of wishes

If he was still in employment he would likely have named a beneficiary…..if he was already retired then likely his pension died with him

Had he actually retired when ge died?
With the defined contribution pension, if he had retired and bought an annuity, then it depends if that annuity made provision for dependants, in a similar way that the occupational pensions may have a nominated beneficiary. If he was just using drawdown to access the pension and there was monet still in the pot, then that money should have been paid out to whoever your DF nominated.

Yes, he retired a few years before he died.

I guess the second part of my question is- how would I track down a personal pension? I know where to start for his occupational one.

Your replies have been very useful, thank you.