Death of a Pensioner
Enlarge image
(© Copyright Colourbox)
When a beneficiary passes away the Pension Authority needs to be informed without delay. It will then discontinue the payments. The information can either be forwarded by the next of kin/executor of the estate or by the German Foreign Mission. The following information/documents are required by the German Pension Authority:
- death certificate of the beneficiary (if possible original)
- date of birth
- name and file number of the Pension Authority
- name and contact details of the executor of the estate.
You can find the contact details of the Pension Authorities at the bottom of this site. If the German mission shall forward the information to the Pension Authority, please send the above mentioned information by mail to the German mission.
The pensioner is entitled to the pension for the month in which he/she passed away. In most cases the pension payment was made at the beginning of the month/end of the previous month. Pension payments which are made after this time must be paid back to the Pension Authority.
Please note that even after notification of the death it can still take some weeks until payments are stopped due to banking procedures. As many pensions are paid at the beginning of a month, overpayments occur regularly. The Pension Authority tries to retrieve the money from the account, to which the pension was paid, directly or contacts the next of kin. If the pension was paid by cheque, you should not cash the cheques, to which the pensioner was not entitled any more.
