Social Security Survivor Benefits: How do they work?

Today’s video is to educate everyone who is married on how to apply for Social Security Survivor Benefits. Depending on whether you are already collecting benefits personally or not, you will have different claim options should your spouse pass away.

The first step is reporting your spouse’s death to Social Security. Generally, a funeral director will take care of this when assisting with obtaining the death certificate. This will allow Social Security to provide the necessary forms to facilitate your claiming the $255 lump sum death benefit and then send you the forms to claim any unpaid benefit owed to your spouse.

For those survivors younger than age 60 and with children, there are claim forms to allow you to receive a certain level of benefit is caring for a child under age 16. As well as the child may receive a benefit until age 18 (or 19 if still in high school). These benefits will be calculated based on your spouse’s projected Social Security benefits up to a maximum survivor benefit which is 150-188% of the deceased parent’s Social Security Primary Insurance Amount. Keep in mind that these benefits will not last forever and for you, the surviving spouse, your earliest age to claim a long-term spousal survivor benefit is at age 60, should you have remained single. Remember, when your status changes, so can your Social Security eligibility.

Also, you will want to first consider a few other things before your elect your survivor benefits, like are you working, what are your earnings, and what is your personal projected Social Security benefit. Remember that when you claim any Social Security benefit before your full-retirement age you are subject to an earnings limit.

Now, if you are older with grown children and you and your spouse were claiming Social Security, then the claims process is straight forward, and your options are pretty simple. As a widow you may be eligible for the lump-sum death benefit, we discussed and an election to either keep your spouse’s benefit or if yours was larger, keep your own. This election will be irreversible and would only be subject to change if you were to remarry, thereby opening a door to a spousal benefit based on your new spouse.

Keep in mind that the claims process can take a few months to be settled and sometimes you may experience Social Security retracting the benefit paid to your spouse in the event they did not learn of the death until after they paid out additional benefits. As you know, Social Security pays in arrears. For example, you are paid in December for earnings in November.

You must be alive for the whole month to receive benefits for that month. So if for example you passed away the 25th of this month but next month you were still paid from Social Security because they had not yet learned of your passing, they will pull back the benefits paid and wait for your spouse to file the proper forms to determine what if any benefits were owed based on your date of death and eligibility of your survivors.

Social Security benefits remain one of the most important to us all in retirement. Take time to talk to a financial advisor to be sure you never miss out on any benefits you are entitled to as well as you know all the options you have available based on any changing circumstances.

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