PART 1Membership, contributions and benefits
Survivor benefits
Death grants: deferred members, pension credit members and deferred pensioner members43
1
If a deferred member dies an administering authority shall pay a death grant.
2
The appropriate administering authority may, at its absolute discretion, pay the death grant to or for the benefit of the member's nominee, personal representatives or any person appearing to the authority to have been a relative or dependent of the member.
3
The death grant is the amount the member would have been entitled to receive as retirement pension annually if—
a
the member had been able to draw a pension on the day the member died; and
b
the pension the member would have been able to draw on that date had not been subject to any restriction on the age at which it could be drawn, or actuarial adjustment relating to the age at which it was drawn,
multiplied by 5.
4
If the administering authority has not made payments under paragraph (1) equalling in aggregate the member's death grant before the expiry of two years beginning with the member's death or, where the authority did not know about the member's death before the expiry of that period, beginning with the date on which the administering authority could reasonably be expected to have become aware of the member's death, they must pay an amount equal to the shortfall to the member's personal representatives.
5
This regulation applies to pension credit members (including persons entitled to a pension credit who die before the appropriate administering authority awards a pension credit) as it applies to deferred members with the modification that for the amount of death grant calculated under paragraph (3), the amount calculated under paragraph (3)(a) and (b) is multiplied by 3.
6
This regulation applies to deferred pensioner members as it applies to deferred members except that the amount of death grant calculated under paragraph (3) is reduced by the amount of pension already paid to the member under regulation 35(7) (early payment of retirement pension on ill-health grounds: active members) and any lump sum paid under regulation 33 (election for lump sum instead of pension).