Hi. My husband died of oesophageal cancer in October. We both took early retirement in 2017. I started to receive my civil service pension, and my husband took his 2 workplace pensions. At the time we weren’t married, but had been living together for about 15 years. Taking our pensions made both of us consider the fact that we were getting older, and we wanted to simplify any financial and legal issues in the event that one of us died. So we decided to get married. We married in April 2018. Now that my husband has passed on, I have been dealing with all the paperwork. I informed both his pension providers, and submitted the required documents and certificates. I was very surprised to hear back from one of his pension providers that I wasn’t eligible for a spouse’s pension because we weren’t married when he left the scheme - ie when he retired and stopped paying in. I queried this, and they provided me with the relevant scheme rules, where indeed it did state that marriages contracted post retirement were not covered. Similarly, Co-habiting partners are not included. Ive since learnt that this is not unusual. I went back through all the documentation that my husband had received about his pension - his forecasts and so forth, and there was no mention of this. I feel angry, because we acted in good faith, based on the information we had, which seemed clear cut. I wonder how many people are caught out by this, and if it is worth trying to fight the decision. I understand that the trustees have some leeway on interpreting the rules on a case by case basis. It feels rather cruel, especially at a time when dealing emotionally with a husbands death, and practically, with all the financial instability that often follows. Thank goodness my husband didn’t ever find out - he would be raging!
