My Ex-Husband Died: What a Divorced Partner Can Claim

If your ex-husband has died and you are still raising his children, the honest first answer is that there is no bereavement benefit in the UK for a former spouse. Divorce ends the legal link that Bereavement Support Payment depends on, and it ends it completely. Many of the searches that bring people to this question are filled with American results about survivor benefits from US Social Security, which do not apply here and give false hope. So it is worth being plain: as a divorced ex-wife you cannot claim a widow's payment, however long the marriage lasted or however recently it ended.

That is not the end of the question, though, and it is not the part that matters most. The stronger question is what his children can claim, because they remain his children for pension and inheritance whatever happened between the two of you. His pension scheme, any maintenance he still owed, and in some cases the courts, are where money may still be due to the household you are keeping going.

This page sets out the UK answer rather than the US one: what a divorced partner and the children can and cannot claim when the father dies, who to write to, and which deadlines will not wait.

Why Bereavement Support Payment is closed to a former spouse

Bereavement Support Payment is the main state payment when a partner dies, but entitlement rests on a specific relationship at the date of death. You had to be married to the person who died, in a civil partnership with them, or living with them as a couple with a child. A final divorce order — the decree absolute, now called the final order — dissolves the first of those, and there is no residue left over that a former spouse can claim on.

There is no discretion in this and no reduced rate for a long marriage. It would make no difference if he had died the week after the divorce came through. The rule looks only at the legal position on the day of death, and on that day you were his former wife, not his wife. It is a hard line, and it catches people who cared for him, or who never really fell out with him, just as firmly as it catches anyone else.

It is worth naming what a still-married widow would have had, because it shows the size of what divorce closes off. A surviving spouse can claim Bereavement Support Payment within the time limits, and can also inherit a one-off tax-free ISA allowance from the person who died — the ISA allowance a surviving spouse inherits. Neither of those is open to a former spouse. If you want the wider picture of what the state does and does not pay after a death, our guide to bereavement benefits and state support maps it out.

His pension: where a former spouse can still appear

A pension is the one place where a divorced ex-partner sometimes still has a foothold, and it is the first thing to check. Dig out the financial order from the divorce, because what you are entitled to now was very likely decided then.

If the divorce included a pension sharing order, a slice of his pension was moved into a pension in your own name at the time. That is your pension. It belongs to you already, it has nothing to do with his estate, and his death does not touch it — you simply draw it under its own scheme's rules when the time comes. Many people forget they have one, so if the settlement mentioned pension sharing, contact that scheme.

If instead the order was a pension attachment order — sometimes called earmarking — the position is less certain and depends on exactly what it attached to. An order that gave you a share of his pension income usually falls away when he dies, because the income it drew from stops. An order written over a lump-sum death benefit can be a different matter. The wording of the order decides it, so read it and put the question directly to the scheme administrator.

Then there are benefits the scheme may pay in its own right. Many workplace and personal pensions pay a children's or dependant's pension for a member's children, typically while they are under 18, or older if they stay in full-time education. A death-in-service lump sum, if he was still employed, is usually paid at the trustees' discretion to whoever he nominated or to his dependants, which may or may not include the children. None of this is automatic and none of it is advertised. Write to each scheme he held, enclose the death certificate and the children's birth certificates, and ask specifically what is payable for the children.

If you do not know what pensions he had — which is common years after a divorce — the government's free Pension Tracing Service can find a scheme from an old employer's or provider's name, so it is worth starting there before you assume there is nothing. You can use the Pension Tracing Service on gov.uk to get the current contact details for a scheme. Once you have them, put every question in writing and keep copies, because these enquiries can take months and the children's entitlement does not lapse for asking slowly.

What his children can claim

This is the part worth putting most of your energy into, because the children's position is far stronger than yours. They remain his children for every purpose that involves money after a death.

For any scheme children's pension, they qualify as his dependants regardless of the divorce. For inheritance, they are among his closest relatives. If he left a will, what they receive depends on it. If he died without one, the intestacy rules in England and Wales pass his estate to his children — after the share of a current spouse, if he had remarried, but a former spouse takes nothing on intestacy. So the children can inherit even though you cannot.

One benefit people ask about does not apply here: Guardian's Allowance is for someone bringing up a child who has effectively lost both parents, so while you are alive and raising them it is not payable. That aside, the children's claims are real, and pursuing them properly is part of holding the household together.

A practical first step is to find out who is dealing with his estate. If he left a will, that is the executor named in it; if he did not, it will be whoever applies to administer the estate, often a current partner, a parent or an adult child. That person is who you make the children's claims to — for their share on intestacy, for any debt he owed them, and for information about his pensions and policies. If a new partner or family is handling things and communication is difficult, the children's rights do not depend on that relationship being friendly; they are entitlements, not favours, and can be pursued formally if they are ignored.

Which points to something uncomfortable but important. With him gone, the children now depend on you alone, and on your income alone. If you have no life cover of your own, that is the exposure to look at while you are thinking about their security, so that a second bereavement would not also mean a financial collapse. You can get life insurance quotes and have an FCA-authorised broker price cover against your own circumstances.

Maintenance stops at death, but arrears do not vanish

Child maintenance — whether it ran through the Child Maintenance Service or a court order — ends when the paying parent dies. The ongoing obligation does not carry on against his estate as a rolling monthly payment, which is a genuine loss of income for a household that was relying on it.

What does not disappear is anything he already owed. Maintenance that had built up as arrears before he died is a debt, and it can be claimed against his estate alongside his other creditors. Get a statement of the arrears from the Child Maintenance Service, or check the balance under the court order, and tell whoever is dealing with the estate — the executor or administrator — that the debt exists so it is not quietly overlooked when the estate is shared out.

There is one arrangement worth looking for in the divorce paperwork. Some financial settlements required the paying parent to keep a life insurance policy in place, often written in trust for the children, precisely so that support would continue if he died. If his settlement did that, there may be a policy that pays out to the children now. It is easy to miss because it sits outside the pension and the estate entirely.

When a court can still order provision from the estate

In England and Wales, the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975 lets certain people ask a court for reasonable financial provision from an estate when a will or the intestacy rules leave them without it. A child of the person who died is squarely within the categories that can apply, so if the children have been left without reasonable provision, that route exists for them.

A former spouse can sometimes apply too, but with two important limits: you must not have remarried, and the divorce must not have included an order barring such claims, which many clean-break settlements do. If both of those are clear, an application is at least possible, though it is a court process and not a benefit you simply claim. The deadline is strict — generally six months from the grant of probate or letters of administration — so it is not something to leave sitting. You can read the terms of the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975 on the legislation.gov.uk site.

If you end up arranging the funeral yourself — because the children are too young to, and no one else has stepped in — whether the state helps with the cost is a separate question with its own rules. It turns on which benefits you receive and on a tight deadline: the claim runs to the six-month deadline measured from the funeral, not the death, and even a successful award often leaves a shortfall, as we set out in how far the Funeral Expenses Payment falls short of the actual bill.

Scotland and Northern Ireland

The refusal of Bereavement Support Payment to a former spouse is a UK-wide rule, so that answer does not change north or west of the border. What differs is the law of inheritance and the claims the children may have.

In Scotland, children have legal rights — sometimes called legitim — over the moveable part of a parent's estate, and these cannot be cut out by a will. That gives his children a fixed entitlement to a share of things like money and investments regardless of what any will says, which is a stronger automatic position than children have in England and Wales. A divorced former spouse, however, has no equivalent automatic claim in Scotland. In Northern Ireland the succession and family-provision rules again run on their own footing; if your situation involves a partner rather than a former spouse, the way a survivor can pursue an interest in the home is set out in a cohabitant's claim on the house in Northern Ireland. In every part of the UK, the practical move is the same: check his pension schemes, check the divorce order, and make sure the children's claims are actually pursued.

Frequently asked questions

Can a divorced wife claim Bereavement Support Payment?

No. Entitlement depends on being married, in a civil partnership, or cohabiting with a child at the date of death. A final divorce order ends that link, so a former spouse cannot claim, however long the marriage lasted or however recently it came to an end. There is no reduced rate and no discretion to award it on compassionate grounds.

What about his pension?

Worth checking. Some schemes pay a children's pension, and a few can pay a former spouse where the court ordered it or the trustees have discretion. Look for a pension sharing or earmarking order from the divorce, and write to the scheme administrator with the death certificate. A pension sharing order in particular gives you a pension in your own name that his death does not affect.

What can the children claim?

They remain his children for pension and inheritance purposes. Maintenance stops, but arrears owed at the death can be claimed from the estate, and a child may have a claim under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975 if they were not reasonably provided for. Check any pension scheme he held for a dependent children's pension as well.