SWMBO is still working 
and gets death in service of thousands, all mine Better off dead 
NO! she's nice to me, besides the stropy stuff. 
I have that as well, well, I guess I don't get it....... 
Ah yes, three quarters of your salary in death; my husband had that in his pension plan, but then we were divorced and I won't see a penny of his money now!! The mortgage was also ready to be paid off on his death!
No Lizzie, dare I say that? Yes I do..... 3 x salary, it's my best option given my health record as any meaningful life insurance is unafordable, and the one I do have of old, was a poor purchase...... 
Ah right Vamps. I am now getting curious. I am sure my ex always told me it was three quarters...............but was it really more................a LOT more.......and it was an effort (successful one!!) to keep me off the scent??!! 
Seriously though we both had successful senior managerial careers in the same outfit and I left that which I had worked for since aged 15 after 28 years service, and that seems such a long time ago now and perhaps our "in death benefit" was much better than I remember. We both worked for a firm whose mother company was a multi-billion dollar tobacco company in the USA and the group pension scheme (which I am enjoying now) was considered one of the best in the industry. So the three quarters of salary that I thought I remembered is probably wrong! 
Whatever it was I know we both joked how we both would be better off dead than alive!!
Death in service benefit is often only payable to the legal spouse. Some schemes do now permit civil partners. If you divorce, you will lose that benefit.
In a divorce, the initial premise is that ALL assets are split equally. That means that the starting point was that you are entitled to half his pension at the time of divorce. You can chose to take more or less than half in exchange for more or less of something else - like the house. Google "Pension Sharing Order". If you/your solicitor didn't include the value of his pension in the financial split agreement, then you/he f***ed up big time.
Pensions can be very valuable assets - often worth more than the house. Someone on a final salary pension paying £30K p/a would have a notional pension pot value of around £600-700K.
Author
Topic: Better off dead?! (Read 3133 times)