Retirement: 5 misconceptions about the survivor’s pension

It is dedicated to widows and widowers. The survivor’s pension, which benefited nearly 3 million individuals in 2018, allows them to recover part of the pension rights to which the deceased spouse (or partner, it depends) could theoretically have claimed. The methods of access as well as remuneration vary (sometimes considerably) from one scheme to another, as Dominique Prévert of Optimaretraite recently explained in our columns, but the system always responds to the same logic, the same joint.

The fact is, alas for pensioners, that the retirement pension is capped. It is not possible to win more than a certain amount, as Planet has explained in the past. In practice, it is not possible to receive more than 925.56 euros monthly from the general scheme. In concrete terms, this therefore represents up to 11,106.72 euros per year. For the complementary reversion, everything will depend on the scheme: with Agirc-Arrco, the amount of the pension corresponds to 60% of the amount that the deceased should have received. With the public plan, on the other hand, this amount drops to 50%.

With the solidarity allowance for the elderly (Aspa, ex-minimum old age), reversion is one of the rights visibly unknown to French women and men. This is demonstrated by the very high rate of non-use of the survivor’s pension in France, which Capital recently mentioned in an interview with Renaud Villard, the director of the national old-age insurance fund.

To learn more about this device, find our slideshow of received ideas relating to the survivor’s pension.