The Teachers’ Pension Scheme (TPS) is one of the largest occupational schemes in the UK, with around 2 million members in England and Wales – serving teachers and lecturers in state schools, sixth-form colleges, further education, and many academies and independent schools that have opted in. When a member dies, the scheme pays a lump sum death grant and an ongoing survivor’s pension that together can be worth several times the member’s salary plus a lifetime income for a spouse or partner.
This guide covers how to notify Teachers’ Pensions, what benefits are payable depending on whether the member was active, deferred, or already drawing their pension, and the small administrative steps that catch families out. It is written for spouses, civil partners, cohabiting partners, and adult children dealing with the practical side of a bereavement involving a TPS member.
Teachers’ Pensions is administered by Capita on behalf of the Department for Education. It is a separate scheme from the NHS Pension and the Local Government Pension Scheme, even though many teachers also have local government service from other roles.
Quick reference:
- Teachers’ Pensions bereavement helpline: 0345 606 6166 (Monday to Friday, 8:30am to 6pm)
- WhatsApp: 07545 932 848 (message only – no calls; up to two working days for a reply)
- Online death notification: teacherspensions.co.uk/forms/notification-of-death
- Bereavement hub: teacherspensions.co.uk – recently bereaved
- What to have ready: the deceased’s Teachers’ Pensions reference number or National Insurance number, date of birth, date of death, and the name of their most recent school or college
- Tell Us Once: Teachers’ Pensions does not participate in the Tell Us Once service. You need to contact the scheme directly, even if you have used Tell Us Once for other government departments.
How to notify Teachers’ Pensions of a death
Teachers’ Pensions urges relatives to make contact as soon as practical after the death. There are three routes:
1. Online notification (recommended)
The fastest option is the online Notification of Death form at teacherspensions.co.uk/forms/notification-of-death. It takes around five minutes to complete and has two parts: Part A is for the deceased member’s details, Part B is for the person reporting the death.
Once submitted, the scheme will write to you with details of its secure portal, where you can complete the formal application for death benefits and upload supporting documents (death certificate, marriage certificate, and so on). The portal removes the need to send originals by post.
2. Phone
Call 0345 606 6166 (Monday to Friday, 8:30am to 6pm). An operator will take initial details and post you a paper application form to complete and return. This route is slower than the online portal but is the right option if you would prefer to speak to someone.
3. Paper form
Download the “Death notification and application for death benefits” form from the bereavement section of the Teachers’ Pensions website and send it back by post. The form is around 20 pages because it combines initial notification with the full application for benefits in a single document.
4. WhatsApp
For brief queries, Teachers’ Pensions accepts WhatsApp messages on 07545 932 848. Replies can take up to two working days. The number does not accept phone calls.
What happens after you notify them
Teachers’ Pensions will:
- Verify the death with the deceased’s employer (the school, college, or local authority).
- Confirm whether the member was active, deferred, or in pension payment, and identify any periods of service in both the final salary scheme (pre-2015 in most cases) and the career average (CARE) scheme.
- Write to potential beneficiaries with a personalised explanation of what is payable and what evidence they need to provide.
- Calculate any overpayment of pension if the deceased was receiving payments (usually a small amount covering the days between the last payment and the date of death) or any residue still to be paid up to that date.
Source: Teachers’ Pensions – letting us know and informing Teachers’ Pensions when someone passes away. Last verified: 13 May 2026.
What documents you’ll need
Teachers’ Pensions will send a personalised list once you have notified them. Typically you will need:
- Death certificate – original or certified copy. A registrar provides certified copies for a small fee at the time of registration; certified copies from a solicitor are also accepted. Photocopies are not.
- Teachers’ Pensions reference number or National Insurance number – on any TP correspondence, the annual benefits statement, or a payslip from Teachers’ Pensions if the member was retired.
- Marriage or civil partnership certificate – if you are claiming as a spouse or civil partner.
- Evidence of cohabitation and financial interdependency – if you are claiming as an unmarried partner. Joint bank statements, utility bills, a joint tenancy or mortgage agreement, and proof of address at the same property are the usual items.
- Birth certificates for any dependent children – if claiming a children’s pension.
- Bank account details – sort code and account number for whoever will receive the lump sum and the ongoing survivor’s pension.
- Grant of probate or letters of administration – only required if no death grant nomination is in place and the lump sum is being paid into the estate.
When you order copies of the death certificate at the registry office, ask for several at once. Each one costs around £12.50 and most families need three to five copies to deal with banks, pensions, and probate.
Lump sum death grant
The headline payment from Teachers’ Pensions is the death grant. The amount depends on the member’s status at the date of death and which part of the scheme they belonged to.
If the member died in service (active member)
For an active member – broadly, someone who was still teaching and paying contributions, or was on approved absence such as maternity, paternity, or sick leave at half pay or more – the death grant is three times the member’s annual full-time equivalent salary at the date of death.
This applies in both the career average (CARE) scheme and the final salary scheme. The full-time equivalent calculation matters for part-time and supply teachers: even if the member was only working two days a week, the grant uses what they would have earned at full hours.
The grant is also payable if the member died:
- Within 12 months of leaving teaching due to ill-health and was entitled to ill-health benefits.
- On approved leave with at least half pay.
- During pensionable service in the reserve forces.
If the member had left teaching but had not yet drawn their pension (deferred member)
For a deferred member who had not reached normal pension age, the death grant is generally three times the deferred annual pension, rather than the higher in-service formula.
If the deferred member had reached normal pension age but had not yet claimed their pension, the benefits they were entitled to are paid out as if they had retired the day before death, rather than a separate death grant.
If the member was already drawing their pension (pensioner member)
For a pensioner who dies within the first five years of retirement, Teachers’ Pensions pays a supplementary death grant equal to five times the annual rate of pension at the date of death, less any pension already paid.
In practice, this means the beneficiaries receive whatever is left of the first five years of pension payments as a lump sum. If the pensioner had been drawing their pension for more than five years before dying, no lump sum death grant is payable – the survivor’s pension is the only ongoing benefit.
Members who took phased retirement (drawing part of their pension while continuing to work) and died while still in pensionable service receive the active member grant of 3× full-time equivalent salary, less any retirement lump sum already paid, plus a supplementary lump sum if death is within five years of any earlier phased payment.
Source: Teachers’ Pensions – death benefits factsheet and death in service FAQs. Last verified: 13 May 2026.
Who can receive the death grant
The death grant is paid at the scheme administrator’s discretion, which keeps it outside the estate for probate purposes and (until April 2027 – see below) outside inheritance tax.
The scheme follows the member’s Death Grant Nomination form. The member can nominate any individual, charity, or trust to receive the grant. If a valid nomination is in place at the date of death, the lump sum is paid to that nominee without going through probate. If no nomination exists, the grant is paid into the estate – at which point probate may be needed and the money becomes a normal estate asset.
If you are not sure whether the deceased completed a nomination, ask Teachers’ Pensions when you call. They hold the records and will tell you exactly who is nominated.
Survivor’s pension (adult dependant)
A regular pension is paid to an eligible surviving partner for the rest of their life, indexed each year to inflation in line with the consumer prices index. It is taxable as income.
Who counts as an eligible partner
- Spouse: automatically eligible.
- Civil partner: automatically eligible.
- Cohabiting partner (unmarried, not in a civil partnership): eligible only if the member had at least two years of pensionable service after 1 January 2007 and certain conditions are met at the date of death. The couple must have been in an exclusive long-term relationship, financially interdependent (or one financially dependent on the other), free to marry or form a civil partnership, and living together as if married.
A cohabiting partner does not need a separate nomination form to qualify – the scheme assesses eligibility based on evidence at the time of claim. Gather joint financial documents before contacting the scheme. Without that evidence, the claim will stall.
If the member married, remarried, or entered a civil partnership after they retired, the survivor’s pension is calculated using only service from 6 April 1978 onwards, not their full service.
How much the survivor’s pension is
Career average (CARE) scheme – service from 1 April 2015 onwards:
The long-term survivor’s pension is 37.5% of the career average pension the member had accrued at the date of death. For an active member who died before retirement, this uses the pension they had built up by the date of death (enhanced in some in-service cases – see below).
Final salary scheme – service before 1 April 2015:
The long-term survivor’s pension is 1/160th of the final average salary for each year of survivor benefits service. Survivor benefits service typically equals the member’s reckonable service, but the rules differ slightly for service before April 1972 and for members who married after retirement.
If the member had service in both schemes (which most teachers who joined before 2015 do), Teachers’ Pensions calculates the survivor’s pension under each scheme and pays the combined total as a single monthly payment.
Death-in-service enhancement
If the member died in service, the survivor’s pension is enhanced rather than being based only on the pension the member had built up. The enhancement treats the member as if they had continued in service up to their normal pension age, which significantly increases the surviving partner’s income, particularly for younger members.
Short-term and long-term pensions
For the first three months after death, Teachers’ Pensions pays the survivor’s pension at the full rate of the member’s own pension (or full pensionable salary, for an in-service death) rather than the long-term rate. This is the “short-term pension”. After three months, payments drop to the long-term rate above. If there are dependent children but no surviving adult partner, the short-term pension to the children lasts six months instead of three.
Source: Teachers’ Pensions – family benefits FAQs and death benefits factsheet (January 2026). Last verified: 13 May 2026.
Children’s pension
A children’s pension is payable to dependent children for as long as they meet the age and education conditions.
Age limits:
- If the member’s pension began before 6 April 2006: children’s pension continues until the child reaches age 17 or leaves full-time education, whichever is later.
- If the member’s pension began on or after 6 April 2006: children’s pension continues until age 17, or until age 23 at the latest if the child remains in full-time education or training.
A child who is permanently incapacitated before they reach the cut-off age may continue to receive a pension beyond 23 for as long as the incapacity lasts.
Rate: The children’s pension is shared among eligible children. The exact rate depends on the number of children, whether an adult survivor’s pension is also in payment, and which scheme the member belonged to. Teachers’ Pensions calculates this for you – families do not need to work it out.
A children’s pension stops when the child marries or enters a civil partnership, takes up substantial employment, or reaches the age limit. It does not transfer to anyone else when it ends.
Death Grant Nomination form
The Death Grant Nomination form is the single most important piece of paperwork sitting behind the lump sum. Teachers’ Pensions members complete it to tell the scheme who should receive the death grant if they die.
If a valid nomination is in place at the date of death:
- The lump sum is paid directly to the nominee, usually within a few weeks of the scheme receiving the death certificate.
- The money sits outside the estate – it does not pass under the will, does not go through probate, and (under current rules) does not count toward inheritance tax.
- The nominee receives the full amount, regardless of what the will says.
If no nomination exists, the death grant is paid into the estate. At that point it falls under probate, may be subject to claims by creditors, and may be taxable as part of the estate.
Nominations can be in favour of:
- A spouse or civil partner.
- An unmarried partner.
- One or more individuals (children, grandchildren, siblings, friends).
- A registered charity.
- A trust.
The nomination can be changed at any time. Nominations made before marriage or civil partnership are not automatically updated by the marriage – members need to confirm or update their nomination after major life events. This catches people out: a member who nominated a sibling at the start of their career and then married never updated the form, and the lump sum ends up with the sibling rather than the spouse.
If you are unsure whether the deceased completed a nomination, ask Teachers’ Pensions on the bereavement line. They hold all current nominations on file.
The April 2027 pension IHT change and TPS
From 6 April 2027, most unused pension funds and pension death benefits will be brought into the deceased’s estate for inheritance tax. For defined benefit schemes like the TPS, the picture has been clarified through HM Treasury’s 2025 consultation response:
- Death-in-service lump sums – the 3× full-time equivalent salary grant paid because the member died as an active TPS member – have been excluded from the new IHT rules. They will continue to sit outside the estate for IHT purposes.
- Survivor’s pensions – the regular adult dependant pension and children’s pension – are unaffected. Spouse and civil partner survivor pensions also benefit from the existing spousal exemption from IHT.
- Death grants for deferred and pensioner members – the 3× deferred pension grant for a deferred member, and the 5× supplementary death grant for a pensioner who dies within five years of retirement, are expected to fall within the new IHT framework. Personal representatives (the executor or administrator) will become responsible for reporting and paying any IHT due on these payments from April 2027.
From the same date, pension scheme administrators must provide a valuation of any in-scope death benefits within four weeks of being notified of the death, so the personal representatives can include the figure in the IHT account.
Source: HMRC – inheritance tax: unused pension funds and death benefits and Royal London adviser briefing on the April 2027 changes. Last verified: 13 May 2026.
The detailed secondary legislation is still being finalised. If a large deferred or pensioner death grant is involved, take specific advice from a financial adviser or solicitor familiar with the final rules.
How long it takes
Once Teachers’ Pensions has all the documents, realistic timings are:
- Death grant: typically paid within 4 to 8 weeks of the scheme receiving the completed application and supporting documents.
- Short-term survivor’s pension: first payment within around 6 weeks, backdated to the day after the date of death.
- Long-term survivor’s pension: begins automatically three months after death, paid monthly thereafter.
- Children’s pension: similar timeline to the adult survivor’s pension.
The biggest delays come from missing or unclear documents – an unreadable date on a death certificate, a marriage certificate in a former name, a cohabiting partner claim with insufficient evidence of joint financial life, or uncertainty about which periods of service apply.
There is a hard two-year deadline for the death grant. If the grant is not paid within two years of Teachers’ Pensions being notified of the death, an HMRC tax charge of up to 45% applies when it is eventually paid out. This is a notification deadline, not a claim deadline: as long as the scheme has been told about the death promptly, you have plenty of time to gather paperwork.
Tips and things to watch out for
A few practical points come up repeatedly in TPS bereavements:
Tell Us Once does not cover TPS. Even if you have used Tell Us Once when registering the death, you still need to contact Teachers’ Pensions separately. Many families assume otherwise and end up delaying the claim by weeks.
Check whether a Death Grant Nomination is on file. Before assuming the spouse will receive the lump sum, ask the scheme. An out-of-date nomination naming a sibling or an ex-partner overrides what the will says.
Cohabiting partners need evidence, not just declarations. An unmarried partner must show financial interdependency through joint accounts, bills, and tenancy or mortgage paperwork. Without that evidence the claim will stall.
Part-time and supply teachers still get the full death-in-service grant. The 3× calculation uses full-time equivalent salary, so a teacher working three days a week gets the same grant as a full-time colleague on the same pay scale.
Gaps in supply teaching can matter. A supply teacher with breaks in service may have moved in and out of active member status. If the gap covered the date of death, Teachers’ Pensions may treat the member as deferred rather than active, which changes the death grant calculation. The scheme relies on employers to keep it updated; if you suspect the record is wrong, ask for it to be reviewed.
Members who paid AVCs (Prudential Teachers’ AVC). Additional Voluntary Contributions held through the Prudential TPS AVC arrangement are separate from the main scheme. The AVC pot is paid under its own discretionary process – you will need to contact Prudential directly as well as Teachers’ Pensions.
Members with NHS or LGPS service as well. Many teachers also have service in the NHS Pension (school nurses, university lecturers in medical faculties) or the LGPS (teaching assistants, support staff, or earlier careers in local authority adult education). Each scheme has to be notified separately. There is no automatic sharing between them.
Married after retirement: only post-1978 service counts. If the member married or entered a civil partnership after they had retired, the survivor’s pension uses only service from 6 April 1978 onwards. For long-serving teachers, this can reduce the survivor’s pension noticeably.
Summary
If a Teachers’ Pension Scheme member has died:
- Submit the online death notification at teacherspensions.co.uk/forms/notification-of-death, or call 0345 606 6166 (Monday to Friday, 8:30am to 6pm).
- Have ready the deceased’s Teachers’ Pensions reference number or National Insurance number, date of birth, date of death, and the name of their last school or college.
- Ask whether a Death Grant Nomination is on file and who is named.
- Gather documents: death certificate, marriage or civil partnership certificate (or cohabitation evidence), and birth certificates for dependent children.
- Claim the survivor’s pension – it does not start automatically. The dependant application form must be completed.
- Notify other schemes separately if the deceased also had NHS, LGPS, or private pension membership.
For the wider picture on pensions after a death, see what happens to a pension when someone dies. For the rest of the estate process, see our probate hub and inheritance tax guides. For other public sector schemes, see our companion guides on NHS Pensions, the LGPS, the Armed Forces Pension Scheme, the Civil Service Pension Scheme, and the Police Pension Scheme.
Teachers’ Pensions has a dedicated bereavement team and the process, once started, is well-handled. Take it one form at a time.