How to make a death benefit claim

Who can receive a death benefit payment?

When a member passes away, generally we can only pay a super death benefit to dependants and/or a legal personal representative. The legal personal representative is the executor or administrator of the deceased’s estate. 

If we can’t locate a legal personal representative or a dependant, only then can we consider paying the benefit to another person. There are laws around who is considered a dependant or eligible beneficiary.  A beneficiary must be a dependant under superannuation law, and/or your legal personal representative. 

You can nominate: 

• your spouse (including de facto spouse or a same sex partner)
• your child (including an adopted child, stepchild, the child of the member’s spouse or an ex-nuptial child)
• any person who was wholly or partially financially dependent on you at the date of your death or any person who is, or was at the relevant time, in the opinion of the Trustee in an interdependency relationship with the member (generally a close personal relationship between two people who live together, where one or both provided the other with financial support, domestic support and personal support), or
• your legal personal representative.

If any beneficiary nominated is not a dependent at the date of your death, the nomination will be invalid. 

To learn more, visit nominate a beneficiary.

Claims requirements

Once we have been notified, we’ll send you a claims pack to fill out and return to us by email or post. We’ll only ask you for the information that we need to start your claim. 

You will be assigned a dedicated claims case manager. Your claims case manager will be your point of contact throughout the claims process.

Assessment

When we get your completed paperwork, we’ll check to make sure we have everything we need. If there is something missing or incomplete, we’ll let you know.

If there is insurance as part of your claim, we’ll pass your claim to the insurer within 5 business days for assessment.

Your claims case manager will keep you informed about the progress of your claim. You'll get progress updates at least every 20 business days. 

If you contact us with any questions about your claim, we’ll get back as soon as possible, but within a maximum of 10 business days.

Decision

We’ll confirm who will be paid the death benefit payment. 

Who gets the death benefit payment depends on if the late member had a valid beneficiary nomination, or not. The death benefit payment amount includes the insurance component (if any) and the super balance. 

If there’s a valid binding or non-lapsing nomination, we are bound by superannuation law to pay the nominated beneficiary.

If there’s no beneficiary nomination, we’ll follow the relevant fund rules and pay the death benefit payment to your estate. If we cannot pay your estate, we may use our discretion to determine the beneficiaries.

If there are several potential beneficiaries, we need to go through a process known as ‘claim staking’.

During claim staking, we’ll generally tell potential beneficiaries how we intend to pay the death benefit. Potential beneficiaries have 28 days to lodge an objection, if they don't agree with us. If we get an objection, we can’t pay the death benefit payment until we resolve the objection.

Outcome

Where there’s no objection to our proposed death benefit payment decision, we’ll ask you to provide: 

• Payment instructions.
• A completed Know Your Customer form, which we’ll give to you to fill out.
• Certified proof of identity from the relevant beneficiaries.

The total death benefit payable will include the late member’s super account balance plus any insured benefit (if the member held insurance and the insurer approved the claim).

How long will the process take?

Timeframes can vary for an end-to-end death benefit claim process based on:

• How long it takes for the forms to come back and if we require additional information.
• If we need to identify potential beneficiaries. 
• The investments that are required to be sold down.
• If there is a life insurance attached to the policy and the time taken by insurer to complete the insurance claim. 

For death benefit claims that are simple (i.e., have a valid binding or non-lapsing beneficiary nomination), providing we have all the information we need, the process may take up to 3 months. 

More complex claims can take up to (but typically no longer than) 6 months after the death certificate is received.

Learn more about how to make a death benefit claim.