How should families protect themselves under the new Bereavement Benefits system?

clock • 3 min read

Richard Walsh discusses the recent changes to Bereavement Benefit and how family income benefit could be a solution.

From April 2017 the Government is changing the rules on bereavement support for new claimants.  Existing ones will carry on under the previous regime. Under the old system there were three benefits. These are now combined into one "bereavement support payment". First there was a lump sum of £2,000 provided that you were under pension age and your spouse, or civil partner, had paid NI contributions on earnings equal to 25 times the lower earnings limit in any one year.  Although if they died as a result of an industrial accident then that was not required. Under the new system a fam...

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