Who is eligible for Bereavement Support Payment?

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You could be eligible if your partner either:

• paid National Insurance contributions for at least 25 weeks in one tax year; or

• died because of an accident at work or a disease caused by work.

When they died you must have been:

• under State Pension age; and

• living in the UK or a country that pays bereavement benefits. (This includes all EU countries plus a number of others.)

You cannot claim Bereavement Support Payment if you are in prison.

This payment is only available to individuals who were married or in a civil partnership. Bereaved unmarried partners have no entitlement to the benefit. This is despite the fact that in August 2018 the Supreme Court ruled in favour of a bereaved mother who was not married to her children’s father. It said denying bereavement benefits to unmarried, cohabiting partners with children was incompatible with human rights law.