Effect of Suspension, Limitation or Cancellation of Pension

Last amended 22 December 2010

Application of rules

The following rules apply when a person's pension has been cancelled due to loss of eligibility or payability, or when a person's pension has been suspended or limited to recover an overpayment.

Circumstances where no bereavement payment

The table below indicates the conditions under which a bereavement payment cannot be made in respect of a person or dependent child.

Effect of imprisonment

A bereavement payment cannot be made when an income support pension has been suspended due to imprisonment. This is because the definition of pensioner is not met where the person is no longer receiving a rate of pension. Eligibility for bereavement payment does however arise where payments have been redirected to a partner or child while the pensioner is in prison.

Payment where survivor's pension cancelled

If both members of a couple were receiving an income support pension and one member of the couple dies, but prior to the time of death the partner of the deceased pensioner had lost eligibility for or payability of pension, a Single Pensioner Bereavement Payment will be made in respect of the deceased.    

Restoration of pension

If a pension should have been paid to a person during a period of loss of eligibility or loss of payability, and the person, or the person's partner, or a dependent child of the person, had died during that period, the restoration action would include calculation and payment of a bereavement payment.

Bereavement payment may be withheld

If a pensioner dies and at the time of death pension payments were suspended or limited because the pensioner had an overpayment, the Commission has the discretion not to pay the bereavement payment. The Commission may choose to offset the bereavement payment against the overpayment.

If a pensioner dies and at the time of death pension payments were suspended for other reasons, the bereavement payment may be withheld with other pension payments until the suspension is resolved.