Just received pension and passed away, worry about losing social insurance benefits?

However, the concern that workers will lose their benefits if they die early is unfounded because social insurance benefits do not disappear.

The remaining social insurance amount of a pensioner who passes away will be calculated to pay relatives through two payments: funeral allowance and death allowance (including two forms: monthly death allowance and one-time death allowance).

Specifically, according to Article 66 of the 2014 Social Insurance Law, if a worker who is receiving a pension dies, his or her relatives will receive a funeral allowance equal to 10 months of basic salary. This allowance is currently 18 million VND.

Not only in the case of death while receiving pension, relatives of employees are also entitled to receive funeral allowance in the following cases: Employees who die while paying social insurance; employees who die while reserving social insurance payment period (having paid social insurance for 12 months or more); employees who die due to work-related accidents, occupational diseases or during treatment; employees who are receiving monthly work-related accident or occupational disease allowances and have retired and passed away.

Monthly death benefit

According to Article 68 of the 2014 Law on Social Insurance, the monthly death benefit for each relative of a deceased pensioner is equal to 50% of the basic salary; in case the relative has no direct caregiver, the monthly death benefit is equal to 70% of the basic salary.

Thus, the current monthly allowance for each relative is 900,000 VND/month. In case the relative does not have a direct caregiver, the allowance is 1,260,000 VND/month.

The number of relatives who are entitled to receive monthly death benefits is no more than 4 people. Thus, the maximum amount of monthly death benefits that relatives of deceased workers are entitled to receive is 3,600,000 VND/month (if there are 4 relatives eligible for the benefit) or 5,040,000 VND/month (if there are 4 relatives eligible for the benefit and there is no direct caregiver).

The conditions for relatives of retired workers to receive monthly pension benefits are:

Firstly, the child is under 18 years old; the child is 18 years old or older if his/her working capacity is reduced by 81% or more; the child is born when the father dies while the mother is pregnant.

Second, the wife is 55 years old or older or the husband is 60 years old or older; the wife is under 55 years old, the husband is under 60 years old if his working capacity is reduced by 81% or more.

Third, biological parents, parents-in-law or other family members who the deceased is obliged to support; these people must be 60 years of age or older for men and 55 years of age or older for women.

Fourth, biological parents, parents-in-law or other family members who the deceased is obliged to support; these people are under 60 years old for men, under 55 years old for women and have a working capacity reduction of 81% or more.

The Social Insurance Law also clearly states that the above relatives (except children) must have no income or have a monthly income lower than the basic salary.

The maximum one-time death benefit is equal to 48 months of pension.

In case the relatives of the deceased retiree do not fall into the 4 cases eligible for monthly pension, they will receive a one-time pension.

Specifically, in the case of a deceased person whose relatives are eligible for monthly survivor benefits but wish to do so, they will also receive a one-time survivor benefit (except in the case of children under 6 years old, children or spouses with a reduced working capacity of 81% or more).

This one-time pension benefit is calculated based on the pension period of the deceased pensioner.

If the person dies within the first 2 months of receiving pension, the one-time benefit is equal to 48 months of the current pension.

For example, if a worker dies after only 1 month of receiving pension and the pension he/she is receiving is 5 million VND, the one-time death benefit will be 240 million VND (48 months multiplied by 5 million VND/month).

If that person dies in the following months, for every additional month of pension received, the subsidy will be reduced by 0.5 month of pension, the lowest level is equal to 3 months of current pension.

Time to resolve the regime, within a maximum of 8 working days (from the date of receiving complete documents), the Social Insurance agency will resolve the regime according to regulations.

Minh Hoa (t/h)

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