My late husband had an Aviva pension.
I am in my 40s and my husband died in 2021. He was in his early 40s at the time.
He had been very ill with type 1 diabetes and was struggling with his mental health, and as most of his hospital treatment was during the fallout from the second covid lockdown it was an incredibly difficult time.
My husband died in a road traffic accident. I was at work at the time. His case was taken on by the coroner’s office and an inquest was needed.
Because there are multiple cross-county organisations involved we were made aware that this could take some time.
In the two and a half years it has taken for them to finally get organised I have dealt with his finances as best I can. I received a small pension payout from one pension scheme of just under £3,000 and they were happy to accept the interim death certificate.
Around a year ago I received a letter from Aviva trying to track down my husband as he hadn’t updated his address. I rang them to inform them that he had died and they informed me that he had another pension pot of approximately £8,000.
As I am now a single mother, £8,000 would make a big difference to myself and my daughter while I try and get back on track.
I filled out all of the paperwork and sent across the interim death certificate but then received a phone call to inform me they could not accept this and they needed communication with the coroner’s office to ensure I didn’t play a part in my husband’s death.
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This was shocking and quite upsetting but I duly rang the coroner’s office who refused to confirm this until the inquest was over, even though it has never been insinuated by any of the parties involved that ANY of his family had anything to do with his death.
Two months ago, I received an email stating that if I didn’t claim the pension before the new year there would be tax implications.
Having dealt with the incompetence of the local coroner’s office for over two years I have little hope that the inquest will happen before the new year, and I resent the implication that hangs over my head that I had anything to do with my husband’s death.
I’m not sure that there is anything I can do other than just wait it out, but it all seems incredibly unfair. Do you have any advice?
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Did you miss out on a state pension lump sum if you were widowed?
This is Money’s columnist Steve Webb calls on elderly widows who might have missed out on a backpayment when their husbands died to get in contact.
He wants to help people get money that is rightfully theirs, and find out if there is a systematic problem not picked up in the Government’s massive correction exercise for elderly women who were underpaid.
Find out if you could be affected, and how to contact Steve here.
> Did you miss out on state pension if you were widowed in retirement?
Steve Webb replies: I was very sorry to read about the loss of your husband at such a young age, and also about the distressing events since then.
As you know, where someone who dies is a member of a pension scheme there is usually some form of payout to the person (or persons) they have nominated.
In the case of a traditional ‘final salary’ type pension this would usually be in the form of a widow’s (or widower’s) pension, though there can sometimes be a death-in-service lump sum.
In the case of a more modern ‘pot of money’ type pension, which is the sort that your late husband held, you would normally simply receive a lump sum reflecting the value of the pension pot.
Where the person who died was under the age of 75, you can normally receive the inherited pension pot and draw from it free of income tax.
There is more information on the tax rules on inherited pensions here: Tax on a private pension you inherit
As you will see, one of the conditions for inheriting a pension free of income tax is that you have to be paid within two years of the pension provider being told of the death.
This is likely to be the reason that Aviva raised the issue of taxation with you.
Turning to the central point of your question, it is clearly very upsetting for there to be any suggestion that you may have played any part in your husband’s death.
Aviva need to look carefully at the way in which they communicate with bereaved family members in this situation.
Given that one pension scheme was willing to pay out on the strength of the interim death certificate it is not clear why another pension provider would refuse to do so.
Although they may need to pick up on extreme cases where something criminal or fraudulent has gone on, this should surely not be their starting assumption, especially when they are responding to people who are already having to deal with a very difficult time in their life.
On receipt of your message I got straight in touch with Aviva on your behalf. I am pleased to say that they quickly agreed that there should be no further delay and the money you are due has now been paid into your bank account.
I asked Aviva to comment and they said the following (edited to remove your and your late husband’s names):
‘We were very sorry to hear about the passing of your reader’s husband and apologise for the distress caused to your reader over the delay in paying out her late husband’s pension.
‘It is always our intention to settle customer claims as quickly as possible, however, we do recognise that due to the ongoing coroner’s inquest into the death this did not happen in a timely manner on this occasion. We can confirm that your reader has now received this payment.
‘Whilst we made the payment in line with our internal processes, we recognise it has taken longer than we would have liked to pay your reader so we have arranged for an additional payment of £350 in recognition of any upset caused.
‘We are looking at how we can make improvements to our internal process so that payments can be made as quickly as possible in future.’
I hope that all pension providers will learn from your experiences and will ensure that anyone in such a difficult situation is treated with sensitivity and gets a swift and efficient resolution.
Ask Steve Webb a pension question
Former Pensions Minister Steve Webb is This Is Money’s Agony Uncle.
He is ready to answer your questions, whether you are still saving, in the process of stopping work, or juggling your finances in retirement.
Steve left the Department of Work and Pensions after the May 2015 election. He is now a partner at actuary and consulting firm Lane Clark & Peacock.
If you would like to ask Steve a question about pensions, please email him at pensionquestions@thisismoney.co.uk.
Steve will do his best to reply to your message in a forthcoming column, but he won’t be able to answer everyone or correspond privately with readers. Nothing in his replies constitutes regulated financial advice. Published questions are sometimes edited for brevity or other reasons.
Please include a daytime contact number with your message – this will be kept confidential and not used for marketing purposes.
If Steve is unable to answer your question, you can also contact MoneyHelper, a Government-backed organisation which gives free assistance on pensions to the public. It can be found here and its number is 0800 011 3797.
Steve receives many questions about state pension forecasts and COPE – the Contracted Out Pension Equivalent. If you are writing to Steve on this topic, he responds to a typical reader question about COPE and the state pension here.
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