Definition: Survivors' benefit

Category: EU-SILC

Survivors' benefits refer to benefits that provide a temporary or permanent income to people below retirement age after death of their spouse, partner or next-of-kin, usually when the latter represented the main breadwinner for the beneficiary.

Survivors eligible for benefit may be the spouse or ex-spouse of the deceased person, his or her children, grandchildren, parents or other relatives. In some cases, the benefit may also be paid to someone outside the family.

A survivors' benefit is normally granted on the basis of a derived right, that is, a right originally belonging to another person whose death is a condition for granting the benefit.

It includes:

- survivors' pension: periodic payments to people whose entitlement derives from their relationship with a deceased person protected by a scheme (widows, widowers, orphans and similar),
- death grant: single payment to someone whose entitlement derives from their relationship with a deceased person (widows, widowers, orphans and similar),
- other cash benefits: other periodic or lump-sum payments made by virtue of a derived right of a survivor.

It does not include:

- family allowances for dependent children (these benefits are included under "Family/children-related allowance" (HY050G)),
- funeral expenses,
- additional payments made by employers to other eligible persons to supplement the survivors' benefits pay entitlement from a social insurance scheme, where such payments cannot be separately and clearly identified as social benefits (those payments are included under "Gross cash or near-cash employee income" (PY010G)),
- survivors' benefits paid after the standard retirement age (these benefits are included under "Old-age benefits" (PY100G)). http://ec.europa.eu/eur-lex/pri/en/oj/dat/2003/l_298/l_29820031117en00010022.pdf