What Should be Done When a Pensioner Dies?
What Happens to your Pension After You Retire?
What Deductions are Taken from Your Pension?
What Death Benefits are Available for your Survivors after Retirement?
What About Health, Dental and Life Insurance Benefits?
What Should be Done When a Pensioner Dies?
Documents needed
The most important information we need is banking information for the survivor (i.e. account number for direct deposit of the payments). Many spouses have joint banking accounts; but these can be frozen as part of an estate settlement, so it may be advisable for the survivor to set up his or her own account. The financial institution can help with this when the survivor is ready to deal with it, but until this is done, OPTrust can send the pension cheques to the survivor by regular mail.
OPTrust does not usually need a copy of any Will since survivor benefits cannot be designated through a Will. See Who gets a survivor benefit for how benefits flow.
Payments to survivors, beneficiaries or the estate
Usually survivor benefits are automatically payable to your eligible spouse once the information is provided, avoiding any gaps in pension payment. But, you may not have a surviving eligible spouse. If you die after you have started receiving a pension and you do not have an eligible spouse or eligible children, no further benefits will be paid from the OPSEU Pension Plan. What may be payable is a residual balance payment.