Death grants: pensioner members
44.—(1) If a pensioner member dies before attaining the age of 75 an administering authority shall pay a death grant.
(2) The appropriate administering authority may, at its absolute discretion, pay the death grant to or for the benefit of the member’s nominee, personal representatives or any person appearing to the authority to have been a relative or dependent of the member.
(3) Subject to paragraph (4), the death grant is 10 times the annual amount the member would have been entitled to receive as retirement pension at the date of death if there had been no commutation under regulation 32 (election for lump sum instead of pension), but the amount so calculated is reduced by the amounts of any such commuted lump sum and any retirement pension paid to the member.
(4) Where any pension paid to a member derived from a pension credit, the death grant is 5 times the annual amount the member would have been entitled to receive as that pension at the date of death if there had been no commutation under regulation 32 (election for lump sum instead of pension), reduced by the amounts of any such commuted lump sum and any pension paid to the member.
(5) If the administering authority has not made payments under paragraph (1) equalling in aggregate the member’s death grant before the expiry of two years beginning with the member’s death or, where the authority did not know about the member’s death before the expiry of that period, beginning with the date on which the administering authority could reasonably be expected to have become aware of the member’s death, they must pay an amount equal to the shortfall to the member’s personal representatives.