NP45 - A guide to Bereavement Benefits

How your late husband's, wife's or civil partner's National Insurance (NI) contributions affect your bereavement benefits

Bereavement Payment

For you to get Bereavement Payment, your late husband's, wife's or civil partner'sNational Insurance (NI) contribution record must meet the following conditions:

Either:

• before 6 April 1975, they must have paid at least 25 Class 1, Class 2, or Class 3 contributions before State Pension age
• or after 6 April 1975, they must have paid contributions in any one tax year on wages of at least 25 times the lower earnings limit for that year.

A Class 2 or Class 3 contribution counts as 1 week’s earnings at the lower earnings limit. [Legislation (104)]

If your husband's, wife's or civil partner's had not paid enough contributions because they had only recently become liable to pay them, special rules may still help you to get a Bereavement Payment.

Widowed Parent’s Allowance and Bereavement Allowance

For you to get Widowed Parent’s Allowance or Bereavement Allowance, your late husband's, wife's or civil partner's NI contribution record must meet the following two conditions:

Condition 1

They must either:

• have had one qualifying year since 6 April 1975 which is derived from the actual payment of Class 1, 2, or 3 NI contributions
• or have paid 50 flat-rate contributions at any time before 6 April 1975. [Legislation (105)]

Condition 2

For you to get the standard basic rate (100 per cent) of Widowed Parent’s Allowance or Bereavement Allowance, your late husband, wife or civil partner must have had qualifying years for about 90 per cent of the years in their working life.

Condition 1 is deemed to have been satisfied if your husband, wife or civil partner was entitled to long-term Incapacity Benefit at any time during the year they reached retirement age or in which they died, or during the year immediately preceding that year. [Legislation (106)]

If your late husband, wife or civil partner satisfied the first condition, but had fewer qualifying years than the number needed for a standard basic rate allowance or pension (see Table 8 below), you will get a smaller basic rate allowance or pension, provided that the number of their qualifying years was at least a quarter of the number needed. [Legislation (107)]

Table 8 – Working life and qualifying years

Working life and qualifying years

Working life is the period during which your late husband, wife or civil partner had to satisfy the contribution conditions for basic bereavement benefits. It would normally start with the tax year in which they reached age 16 and will end with the tax year before the one in which they died or reached minimum pension age, whichever is earlier. [Legislation (108)]

But if they were over 16 when the National Insurance scheme started on 5 July 1948, the period will start as follows:

• if they were already insured for pension purposes on 5 July 1948, their working life will start at the beginning of the tax year in which they last entered insurance, or 6 April 1936, whichever is later
• if they did not enter insurance until 5 July 1948 or later, their working life will start on 6 April 1948.

A qualifying year for basic rate allowance or pension is a tax year in which they received (or were treated as having received) qualifying earnings of at least 52 times the lower earnings limit for that year. [Legislation (109)]

Between 6 April 1975 and 5 April 1978 the qualifying earnings needed in a tax year for it to be a qualifying year were 50 times the lower earnings limit for that year.

The number of flat-rate contributions your late husband, wife or civil partner had paid or been credited with before 6 April 1975 will be converted to a number of qualifying years by dividing the total by 50 and rounding up the result to the next whole number. If their working life started before 5 July 1948, they will be credited with a contribution for each week up to that date, in place of their actual contribution record for that period. See Table 8.

If your late husband, wife or civil partner lived abroad

Any NI contributions which your husband, wife or civil partner paid in Northern Ireland or the Isle of Man will count for bereavement benefits, under UK legislation.

If they ever lived or were insured in one or more of the countries listed or in the other countries listed below, contributions they paid there (or, in some countries, periods of residence), can help to satisfy the contribution conditions. This may enable you to get bereavement benefits based on the number of years they were insured in Great Britain and/or Northern Ireland. You may also be entitled to a pension from the other country (or countries) in which your late husband, wife or civil partnerlived or was insured:

• Australia
• Barbados
• Bermuda
• Guernsey
• Israel
• Jamaica
• Jersey
• Mauritius
• New Zealand
• Philippines
• Switzerland
• Turkey
• USA
• the former Yugoslavia (ie Serbia and Montenegro and the successor states of Croatia, Bosnia- Hercegovina and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia)

The agreement with Australia ended on 28 February 2001.

But any time your late husband, wife or civil partner lived in Australia before 6 April 2001 may still help to satisfy the contribution conditions for bereavement benefits (but this does not apply to Bereavement Payment).

If you want to know more, or if your husband or wife was in a country not listed here, ask at your Jobcentre Plus office, Jobcentre or social security office.

Industrial accident or disease

If your husband, wife or civil partner did not meet or fully meet the NI contribution conditions, they may be treated as satisfied if their death was caused by an industrial accident or disease.

If you want to know more, see leaflet SD6 Ill or disabled because of a disease or deafness caused by work? or SD7 Disabled because of an accident at work? You can get these from your local office.

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