LRD guides and handbook April 2017

State benefits and tax credits 2017

Chapter 8

8. Help if your husband, wife or civil partner dies



[ch 8: page 89]

What’s new?


• From April 2017, a new single Bereavement Support Payment replaces Bereavement Payment, Bereavement Allowance and Widowed Parent’s Allowance. This marks a shift in focus from long- to short-term support, with payments limited to the 18-month period following the bereavement.


Until April 2017, if someone’s husband, wife or civil partner died, they may have been entitled to:


• Bereavement Payment (a one-off, tax-free, lump-sum payment of £2,000);


• Bereavement Allowance (for those with no dependent children); 



• Widowed Parent’s Allowance (for those with dependent children);


• some inherited State Earnings-Related or Additional Pension; and



• Funeral Payments.



The benefits were not available for people who: 



• were divorced;


• remarried or lived with someone as a couple without being legally married or in a civil partnership; or 


• were in prison or being held in legal custody.