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Deceased husband/ surviving wife's pension arrangements

I wonder if anyone could help with the following? I am a bit sketchy on some of the detail because I haven't seen the paperwork first hand, but I hope I have supplied enough information:

My father died last year aged 64 and was, until the time of his death, in active service as a lecturer in higher education. I am not clear whether or not he was making SERPS contributions, but he certainly had his own occupational pension schene.

My mother worked as a teacher until taking early retirement when aged about 58 (some 12 years ago) . Again, I am not sure about SERPS, but she certainly had an occupational pension scheme during her working life from which she now receives regular payments and she also receives old age pension.

Following my father's death, it transpires that my mother is entitled to receive a proportion of his occupational pension and there are no apparent problems with this arrangement (i.e. she is receiving the payements).

Additionally, the DWP have informed my mother that she is entitled to receive a proportion of my fathers state pension. However, it seems that the total amount that my mother now receives from state pension sources is actually *less* that it was before. She has tried chasing this up with the DWP for an explanation, but without success. It does seem unfathomable that in gaining entitlement to a proportion of a spouse's pension, one could actually end up receiving less. Does anyone know what the deal is here?

Firstly, in considering old age pension alone: is this a fixed amount per person, or is it means adjusted?

Secondly, if some of my mother's or father's pension entitlement derives from SERPS, would this payment be means tested or would it simply calculated on lifetime contributions?

Thanks in advance for any help. My poor old mum (and I) are rather confused by all this!

Regards, Jim.

Reply to
md1jrw
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I can't help you about the OAP - you'll need to get the explanation from the DWP - but regarding the pensions of your father and mother, it appears that they were members of the teachers' scheme and if so they will NOT be entitled to SERPS because this scheme is contracted out of SERPS, like so many large occupational schemes.

Rob Graham

Reply to
Rob graham

Does your mum get a full state pension? Often women can get an increase in their pension when their husband turns 65 and they are over 60, or the woman turns 60 and their husband died after the age of 65, but the latter doesn't apply in this case.

If your mum is on the full state pension they can't reduce what she gets.

Reply to
Robbie

I shall ignore the SERPS bit because, as someone else has pointed out, both parents were probably opted out of it by their occupational pension scheme.

From age 60 onwards, your mother would have been receiving a state pension based on on her NI contributions. If she had not worked for long enough to qualify for a full entitlement (e.g. career break to raise a family) or if she had only paid married womens' contributions, she may not get a full pension in her own right. She will also have been getting an occupational pension. If both these pensions added up to less than a certain amount, she may also have qualified for a pension credit.

When your father died, she would have started getting a pension from his occupational pension scheme - likely about 50% of what he would have got had he lived. From his 65th birthday (even if dead) your mother may have been able to get a top up to her state pension based on *his* contributions, if she was not getting a full pension based on her own contributions. She may also have got a widow's pension earlier than that.

The only explanation I can offer for a reduction in state sources is that she may have lost pension credit now that other sources of income have taken her above the limit.

Reply to
Roger Mills

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