Survivor benefits
Survivor benefits are cash benefits to a survivor of a person, or to beneficiaries designated by that person, that are paid as a result of that person's death .
These include primarily the survivors' pensions; In addition, in the event of death, benefits paid to cover the costs of the funeral and repatriation.
Regarding the legal regulations on survivors' pensions in various countries:
- Pension due to death (survivor's pension and education pension in Germany) and orphan's pension
- Old-age and survivors' insurance (Switzerland)
- Pension (old-age provision) # survivors' pension (Austria)
Europe-wide overview
The recipients of survivors' benefits include (spouses) partners and children of the deceased and possibly the parents, depending on the circumstances also step- parents and foster parents , who the deceased financially supported before his death. Partners in legally registered partnerships often have a right similar to that of a spouse . There are also entitlements for stepchildren, grandchildren or foster children ( see also orphan's pension ).
A distinction is made between contributory benefits, on the one hand, which are based on acquired rights (usually based on payments into the social security system or private insurance) and, on the other hand, non-contributory systems, which provide general coverage for older widowed residents or for widowers below a certain income limit and are mostly tax-financed.
In many countries, survivors' benefits are paid in the form of a survivor's pension from the statutory pension system or, if death occurs due to an accident at work or an occupational disease, from the statutory accident insurance.
In the case of survivors' benefits, a further distinction is made between pension benefits before or after retirement, depending on whether the death occurred before or after the start of the payment of the pension benefits.
Widow's / widower's pensions can depend on the employee's remuneration of the deceased, usually in the form of a proportion of the amount that the deceased would have received as a retirement pension, or they can be flat-rate payments. Widow's / widower's pensions are payable for life or for the duration of a period depending on the duration of the marriage, although there may be further restrictions for comparatively young widows / widowers; in most cases, claims to widow's / widower's pension expire as soon as the beneficiary remarries.
Private provision that protects surviving dependents in the event of death is possible, for example, in the form of life insurance ( e.g. death benefit insurance and other endowment insurance ) or private pension insurance (with premium refund in the event of death and / or survivor protection). Some company pensions also include benefits in the event of the death of an employee.
