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Death in service benefit: how much, and who gets it
The death in service benefit is usually a multiple of annual salary, and most UK employers offer between two and four times salary (Legal & General ↗).
It is payable at the discretion of trustees (Legal & General ↗).
This page sets out the rules: how much, who gets it, the NHS scheme, whether it is a benefit in kind, and how it links to your pension.
Every claim here is our summary of a named external source, linked beside it. Sources change: check the wording at the link before you rely on it.
How much is death in service benefit?
The amount is normally a multiple of salary (Legal & General ↗).
The bars use Legal & General's own example of average UK earnings (Legal & General ↗).
The NHS Pension Scheme uses two times a pay measure that depends on your section (NHSBSA ↗).
Your scheme sets the multiple and which salary it applies to.
The death in service calculator works out your own figure.
Which page do you need?
This page covers the rules of the benefit.
Whether you still need life insurance, how the payment is made and whether it is taxed are answered in the death in service guide.
If you are the employer buying the scheme, the employer guides are below.
- For employees
Death in service
What it means, whether you still need life insurance, how the payment is made and whether it is taxed.
- For families
Death in service payments
How a claim is made, what it needs and who decides who is paid.
- Calculator
Death in service calculator
Your salary times your scheme’s multiple, with the tax checks.
- For employers
Death in service insurance
Buying a scheme for your staff: setting it up, quotes, what to compare and providers.
- For employers
Group life insurance
The group life assurance scheme: minimum employees, registered or excepted, small firms.
- For employers
Group life insurance cost
What death in service costs an employer, what drives the premium, published examples.
Who qualifies for a death in service benefit?
You are covered if your employer's scheme includes you.
Death in service is an employee benefit for people on the company payroll (Legal & General ↗), and Royal London says schemes vary, from the level of cover offered to how the money is paid out (Royal London ↗).
Your contract or benefits booklet sets out who is in.
- Am I in the scheme, and from when?
- What multiple of salary, and which salary?
- Is there a nomination form, and have I filled it in?
People covered across the group risk market, from GRiD (GRiD ↗). Three questions to ask HR: the answers are in your scheme rules (Royal London ↗).
Who gets it: how to nominate beneficiaries
Legal & General says the trustees have a discretionary power to decide who will receive the lump sum (Legal & General ↗).
Royal London says you can choose who you want to receive the money by completing a nomination of benefits letter, and that if the money is paid to a trust the trustees have the final say, even if you have nominated someone (Royal London ↗).
MoneyHelper calls the form an expression of wish.
It says most pension providers or trustees have the right to choose who receives the money, called a discretionary trust, and usually follow the form, but do not have to (MoneyHelper ↗).
Because the trustees work from what you wrote, a form that names the right people now is the one that helps.
Ask
Get the scheme’s form
Your employer or the scheme administrator has it: a nomination or expression of wish form.
Name
Say who, and in what shares
People or an organisation. The trustees take your wishes into account.
Review
Update it when life changes
Marriage, separation, children, a bereavement: the form only helps if it is current.
Decide
The trustees decide
Where the money is paid through a trust, they have the final say.
Discretion (Legal & General ↗); nomination letter and trustees' final say (Royal London ↗); expression of wish (MoneyHelper ↗).
NHS death in service benefit, by scheme section
NHS employees have death in service through the NHS Pension Scheme.
The NHS Business Services Authority sets out the lump sum for each section, who receives it, and the pensions the scheme can pay a family (NHSBSA ↗).
The two tables summarise its page.
Summarised from NHSBSA; its page has the full definitions of each pay measure.
Is death in service a benefit in kind?
Not normally.
GRiD says premiums paid by an employer to provide cover for employees are generally not regarded as a benefit in kind (GRiD ↗).
HMRC's 2018 reform allowed the beneficiary of employer-paid life cover to be any individual or registered charity without the premiums being treated as a taxable benefit in kind (HMRC ↗).
The table shows how two insurers describe their own policies.
We do not work out anyone's tax: if your pay or benefits are arranged differently, check HMRC guidance on GOV.UK or ask an accountant.
Each insurer describes its own policies; HMRC's 2018 paper sets the general rule (HMRC ↗).
Death in service and your pension
Legal & General says the benefit may be integral to a pension scheme or provided separately (Legal & General ↗).
GRiD says most group life policies operate within HMRC's framework for a registered occupational pension scheme (GRiD ↗), which is why the pensions tax rules apply.
In a registered scheme, the lump sum counts towards your lump sum and death benefit allowance (Legal & General ↗): £1,073,100 unless you have a protected right to more, with any excess taxed at the recipient's marginal rate (HMRC PTM172000 ↗).
Benefits from an excepted group life policy do not count towards it (Legal & General ↗).
A scheme can pay a pension instead of, or as well as, a lump sum.
GRiD says a taxable dependant's pension is less common nowadays (GRiD ↗), and Aviva deducts Income Tax from its dependant's pensions before paying them (Aviva ↗).
Where it sits
Inside or beside your pension
The benefit may be part of a pension scheme or provided separately.
Registered
Counts towards the allowance
The lump sum is tested against the lump sum and death benefit allowance.
Excepted
Outside the allowance
An excepted policy’s benefits do not count towards it.
Pension
A dependant’s pension is taxed
Where a scheme pays one, Income Tax is due on it.
Sources: pension link (Legal & General ↗); registered framework and pensions (GRiD ↗); the allowance (HMRC PTM172000 ↗) (Legal & General ↗); Aviva's tax deduction (Aviva ↗).
Does death in service count towards your estate?
Usually not.
MoneyHelper says that where trustees have discretion, pensions are not covered by any will and Inheritance Tax is not payable (MoneyHelper ↗).
An excepted policy is held in a discretionary trust; HMRC says deaths within the first ten years of the trust are likely to be taxed at 0% (HMRC ↗).
Check it for yourself
Every claim on this page is our summary of one of the documents listed here.
We last checked them against the live sources on 28 September 2026.
The documents are the authority, not this page.
Insurers and HMRC update them, so validate any figure or condition at its link before you rely on it.
- Legal & General: death in service v life insurance ↗Payroll, tax-free cash sum, trustees’ discretion, two to four times salary, pension link
- Royal London: death in service benefit, is it enough? ↗Nominations, trustees’ final say, and when the benefit is lost
- MoneyHelper: pensions help after someone’s death ↗Expression of wish forms, trustee discretion, the age-75 rule and probate
- NHS Business Services Authority: benefits payable on death ↗The NHS Pension Scheme lump sum on death in service, and nominations
- GRiD: group life assurance ↗The industry body’s description, tax summary and 2023 market figures
- Aviva: Group Life registered and excepted benefits technical guide (GR01299) ↗How Aviva’s registered and excepted group life policies differ: tax, trusts, cease ages
- HMRC: reform of employer contributions into life assurance (2018) ↗Employer-paid life cover premiums not a taxable benefit in kind for individual or charity beneficiaries
- Legal & General: relevant life and excepted group life policies ↗What an excepted group life policy is, the allowance and discretionary trust charges
- HMRC Pensions Tax Manual, PTM172000 ↗The lump sum and death benefit allowance, and the marginal-rate charge on the excess
- GOV.UK: Inheritance Tax on unused pension funds and death benefits ↗Death in service benefits from registered schemes stay outside the estate from 6 April 2027
- HMRC Inheritance Tax Manual, IHTM17092 ↗Excepted group life trusts and the first ten years
Death in service benefit, answered
Not financial advice. This page is general information. Before buying insurance, the FCA tells consumers to check the firm on its Firm Checker (FCA ↗). For free guidance, see MoneyHelper.