Beneficiaries and your Super

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What is a non-lapsing death benefit nomination?

A non-lapsing death benefit nomination is a request by you to your Super fund trustee to pay your death benefit to the eligible person or persons nominated on your non-lapsing death benefit nomination form. The trustee is required to follow your nomination if prior to your death, he or she receives your completed form and consents to that nomination. The nomination remains valid (provided the people nominated remain eligible recipients) until you revoke or make a new nomination. This can provide you with greater certainty on who will receive your death benefit when you die.

Who can I nominate?

To have a valid non-lapsing death benefit nomination, you can only nominate your dependants and/or your legal personal representative. Your legal personal representative is the person appointed on your death as the executor or administrator of your estate.

Your dependants are:

Your current spouse. This includes the person at your death to whom you are married, in a relationship that is registered under a law of a state or territory, or live with on a genuine domestic basis in a relationship as a couple.
Your child. This includes any person who, at your death, is your natural, step, adopted, ex-nuptial or current spouse's child, including a child who was born through artificial conception procedures or under surrogacy arrangements with your current or then spouse.
Any person financially dependent on you. Generally, this is the case if the person receives financial assistance or maintenance from you on a regular basis that the person relies on or is dependent on you to maintain their standard of living at the time of your death.
Any person with whom you have an interdependency relationship and includes any person where at your death:
- You have had a close personal relationship with this person
- You live together with this person
- You or this person provides the other with financial support, and
- You or this person provides the other with domestic support and personal care.

An interdependency relationship is not required to meet the last three conditions, if the reason these requirements can not be met is because you or the other person is suffering from a disability. In establishing whether such an interdependency relationship exists, all of the circumstances of the relationship are taken into account, including (where relevant):

The duration of the relationship
Where or not a sexual relationship exists
The ownership, use and acquisition of property
The degree of mutual commitment to a shared life
The care and support of children
The reputation and public aspects of the relationship (such as whether the relationship is publicly acknowledged)
The degree of emotional support
The extent to which the relationship is one of mere convenience, and
Any evidence suggesting that the parties intended the relationship to be permanent.

If you are considering relying on this category of dependency to nominate a person, you should think about completing a statutory declaration addressing these points as evidence of whether such a relationship exists. You should talk to a Robertson Scannell financial adviser for more information.

Please note: If you hold a pension account that has an existing reversionary beneficiary has been evoked.

How is my death benefit paid?

At the time of your death, we will contact the people you have nominated in your non-lapsing death benefit to ensure that they are still a dependant or legal personal representative. We are also generally required to establish the identity of this perosn before paying out your death benefit.

If you have nominated one or more of your dependants, they will be provided the choice of taking their proportion of the death benefit as a lump sum cash payment or, if available, a pension from your Super fund.

Please note, any death benefit paid to your legal personal representative must be paid as a lump sum. Also, from 1 July 2007 if you have nominated a child, the death benefit must be paid to them as a lump sum cash payment unless the child:

Is under age 18
Is under age 25 and is financially dependent on you, or
has a certain type of disability.

If your child's personal circumstances change so that they no longer meet one of these exceptions, we will pay the remaining account balance to them as a lump sum cash payment. Where your child is eligible to receive a death benefit pension, they must generally cash any remaining balance out as a lump sum by age 25, unless they remain disabled.