Did you know, you don’t have to be married to choose your lump-sum beneficiary when you have a local government pension?
In reality, you can nominate a beneficiary whether you’re single, married or settled down, and you can choose whoever you want.
All Local Government Pension Schemes (LGPS) include a lump sum (death grant), which may be payable depending on when the member retires or leaves the scheme. A nominated beneficiary is your chosen recipient of this lump sum in the event of your death.
What you may not know is your nomination doesn’t have to be a spouse, partner, or even a person. It’s about deciding who or what matters the most to you. This could be a family member, life-long friend, or a charity that’s close to your heart.
If it helps, you can nominate more than one person (or charity) and your lump sum will be divided up according to your wishes. This could be your children (if you have any), a group of close friends, a mixture of your loved ones, charities, or both.
It’s also good to know that your nominations aren’t set in stone once you’ve made them. If you want to amend them at any point in the future, you can.
Rest assured, while your pension scheme has absolute discretion over who your lump sum goes to (which means it doesn’t form part of your estate for tax purposes), they’ll always take your nominations into consideration – so it’s important to let us know what you’re thinking.
The easiest way to nominate or change a lump-sum beneficiary is via your Online account. Just visit our how-to page for more information.
