Upon death

  • Do pension funds pay funeral costs?

    Pension funds do not pay funeral costs. They pay surviving the spouse’s pension and children’s allowances.

  • Are my additional pension savings inheritable?

    Upon death, additional pension savings go to the surviving spouse and children. The division is that a married spouse gets 2/3 of the additional pension savings and the children 1/3. The additional pension savings are divided even though the spouse stays in an unsettled estate. If the deceased was neither married nor had children, the balance of the additional pension savings are transferred into the deceased’s estate and goes to the heirs.

  • If my spouse dies, does it matter whether she/he is still working or has retired or has a disability pension?

    No. The amount of a surviving spouse’s pension depends on the rights that the spouse acquired before dying, in addition to the rights he/she had acquired from the fund if the fund member had paid contributions through age 65 or 67 (extrapolation).

    For the right of extrapolation to come into force, a fund member must have paid contributions into the pension fund for at least 24 of the previous 36 months and for six of the last 12 months before dying.