'What I Learned About Survivor Benefits After My Husband Died'
Survivor benefits can be complex, even if you don’t think you have a complicated financial situation. This is the story of one widow’s experience.
Editor’s note: This is the first of two articles on survivor benefits from Social Security and private pensions. The second article can be found here.
Marie was 75 when her husband passed away in the fall of 2023. It wasn't sudden: He had been sick for many years. And while she faced all the emotional turmoil you might expect after such a loss, she felt some comfort knowing that she and her husband had squared away most of their affairs.
Besides, Marie (who asked to use only her middle name to protect her privacy) was a 30-year veteran of the D.A.'s office in her county, and she didn't expect any trouble as she made the necessary adjustments to being a widow. "I know my way around government systems," she says. "So I had my documents all lined up."
If you thought Social Security itself was complicated, brace yourself for the extraordinary convolutions of Social Security survivor benefits.
Instead, sorting out her benefits turned into "a total fiasco," she says. Endless phone calls, document requests and a tiny typo prevented Marie from getting her Social Security survivor benefits squared away for nearly two years.
"I needed all the administrative abilities I'd acquired over the years just to get through it," she says with frustration.
How to Survive Survivor Benefits
It's one of those awful realities that's hard to grasp until you've passed through this particular gauntlet. The very systems that are set up to support widows and widowers at a time of emotional distress and financial turmoil end up bedeviling many of them.
What to do?
The most important thing, as Marie learned, is to iron out any wrinkles you can before you lose your spouse or partner. While Marie did have most of her ducks in a row, there were a couple of snags that morphed into bigger hurdles — and these became harder to handle once her husband was gone.
To that end, knowing the essentials of survivor benefits is crucial — whether seeking payouts from Social Security, pensions or annuities, or establishing account beneficiaries — especially now, and especially for women.
How Survivor Benefits Work
Not only do older women have, on average, about a third less saved for retirement than men do, women typically live longer than men and are more likely to be the surviving spouse. According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, 98% of the people claiming survivor benefits from Social Security in 2017 were women. It is unlikely that percentage has changed much since then.
If you thought Social Security itself was complicated, brace yourself for the extraordinary convolutions of Social Security survivor benefits. The best way to decode the rules that follow is not to try to keep them all straight. It's more efficient to focus on where you and your spouse fit, in terms of your ages, marital status, claim status and other criteria.
Three things that apply to everyone:
1. You don't get your spouse's benefit in addition to your own.
This is a common misconception (or maybe wishful thinking). You get one Social Security check: generally, the higher of the two amounts. If you're in a household with two Social Security incomes, plan ahead. When one spouse dies, the survivor will lose one of those monthly payouts.
2. Your survivor benefit amount is based on two things:
One is your spouse's benefit amount when they died; the other is your age when you claim survivor benefits. Widows and widowers already collecting Social Security can switch to the survivor benefit if it's higher.
3. Survivor benefit rules apply even if your spouse wasn't yet collecting Social Security when they died.
If your spouse hadn't yet filed for Social Security when he or she died — because they were too young, or they wanted to delay claiming — your benefit amount would be based on the amount they would have gotten at their full retirement age (FRA). If your spouse was older than FRA when they died, their benefit amount would account for those additional years.
Back to Marie for a Minute
Fortunately, after Marie's husband died, she already knew she didn't have to worry about any of the above. She wasn't expecting two checks, only one. And she knew she was entitled to 100% of her husband's benefit because she met these other criteria, which are:
- You were married for at least nine months, and didn't remarry before you turned 60 (or age 50 if you're disabled).
- You claimed your survivor benefit when you'd reached at least the full retirement age (FRA) for survivor benefits, which is different from regular full retirement age. For survivor benefits, the FRA is 66 and 4 months if you were born in 1958; 66 and 6 months if you were born in 1959; and rising gradually to age 67 for those born in 1962 or later.
By the way: If you're between age 60 and full retirement age for survivor benefits, you're entitled to a reduced benefit between 71% and 99% of the deceased's benefit. If you're disabled, you're eligible to apply for survivor benefits starting at age 50. And you're eligible at any age if you're caring for a child of the deceased who's under 16 and/or disabled (and entitled to their own benefits).
If you're between age 60 and full retirement age for survivor benefits, you're entitled to a reduced benefit between 71% and 99% of the deceased's benefit.
Divorce and remarriage can also impact Social Security benefits. Be sure to check the rules for these circumstances.
Survivor Benefits Must Be Higher
To be super clear, the only reason to go through this rigamarole and file for survivor benefits is if you're pretty sure the survivor benefit will be more than what you'd get on your own record.
Marie knew that her husband's benefit was likely higher — but she wasn't sure how much higher. Unfortunately, that was the detail that tied up her benefits for more than 18 months, while the good people at the SSA requested additional verification, identification and other types of paperwork in order to subtract B from A and determine:
Yes, Marie's husband's benefit was higher, and she would now get his benefit amount, rather than her own!
"It's not a big difference — less than $100 — but it's not nothing," she says, "and I still have no idea if they'll pay the difference retroactively for all these months."
To be continued . . .
This is not the end of Marie's story, and probably not yours, if you're in similar shoes. Like many widows, Marie also had to spend months trying to iron out her health insurance, which boiled down to a clerical error. So, stay tuned for the next thrilling installment in our Surviving Survivor Benefits series: Pensions, Annuities & Account Beneficiaries, Oh My!
A Few More Important Details
In order to claim your survivor benefits (or find out if they're higher than your own), it's wise to report your spouse's death as soon as possible. That's because, according to this semi-useful guide from the Social Security Administration: ". . . for some claims, we'll pay benefits from the time you apply and not from the time the worker died." (Emphasis added.)
Next, per that same factsheet, you will need the following documents:
- Proof of death — either from a funeral home or a death certificate.
- Your Social Security Number, and the deceased worker’s SSN.
- Your birth certificate.
- Your marriage certificate if you’re a surviving spouse.
- Your divorce papers if you’re applying as a surviving divorced spouse.
- Dependent children’s SSNs, if available, and birth certificates.
- Deceased worker’s most recent W-2 Wage and Tax Statement or latest federal self-employment tax return.
- The name of your bank and your account number so your benefits can be deposited directly into your account.
