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A deceased employee's pension: survivors' rights after the death of an employee or pensioner

In briefWhen an employee or pensioner dies, the retirement entitlement passes to eligible survivors: the spouse or wives, the children, the parents, and siblings in one specific case. The pension is distributed at 80% for one beneficiary, 90% for two and 100% for three or more, and each group has conditions of age and income.

After the death of the family's provider, many families ask: who receives the pension, at what share, and for how long? The Unified Retirement Law No. 9 of 2014 calls these people the "successors" (al-khalaf) — the members of the employee's or pensioner's family who succeed them on death — and the "beneficiary" is the one among them actually entitled. Not every heir under Islamic inheritance rules is entitled to the pension: the pension follows the retirement law, not the inheritance shares (al-qassam al-shar'i).

If the employee dies in service

Article 25 provides that an employee who dies in service from any cause has service counted as fifteen years for retirement purposes if it was shorter, with the added period exempt from contributions. The deceased's Iraqi eligible survivors may request allocation of what the deceased was entitled to on the date of death. If the deceased was a temporary employee who died in service or because of it, the survivors receive the minimum survivor's share.

The amendment to Article 21 added a rule for an employee who died in service with at least twenty-five years of pensionable service. In that case the end-of-service award goes to the eligible survivors, including cases occurring after 1/1/2014.

Who are the eligible survivors?

Article 26 lists: the husband or wives, the son, the daughter, the mother, the father, and and — only where the deceased never married and has lost both parents — a brother or sister. The amending law added a son or daughter with a disability of seventy-5% or more, regardless of age.

One condition binds every survivor: no salary or pension of their own, no independent income, no profession, and no job with a private employer. Beyond that, each group has a test of its own:

  • Son or brother: until eighteen, or twenty-two if still in preparatory (secondary) school, or twenty-six if still at university or a higher institute.
  • Daughter or sister: if not married and without a legal provider.
  • Wife: if not remarried.
  • Husband or father: only if wholly and lastingly unable to earn; reaching sixty-three counts as such inability. The inability test is waived where the deceased was a martyr of terrorism or fell within the Law on Compensating Those Harmed by War Operations, Military Errors and Terrorist Operations No. 20 of 2009.

A son past the age limit keeps his share where a medical committee report finds him wholly and lastingly disabled, with a fresh examination at five-year intervals. And children draw a share from their late mother's pension whether or not their father is still living.

How is the pension distributed?

Article 28 sets the shares: 80% of the pension for one beneficiary, 90% for two in equal parts, and the full pension for three or more in equal parts. If one share stops for any reason, the pension is redistributed among the rest at the same rates. Nobody may draw two shares; a person entitled to more than one picks the bigger one, once, with exceptions for a minor (or a person treated as one) entitled from both deceased parents, and for a student still in study.

When does a share stop, and when does it return?

Article 27, as amended, stops the share of a wife, daughter or sister on marriage or appointment to a job, and restores it on divorce, widowhood or leaving the job, provided the entitlement conditions are met. Article 35 requires the pensioner or survivor to notify the Authority in writing of any change in job or family status within one hundred and twenty days; failing that, money taken without entitlement attracts a fine. The Authority checks every five years that the entitlement conditions still apply.

If there is no beneficiary

Sometimes a pensioner dies with money owed by the Fund but leaves nobody who meets the survivor conditions. Those sums then go into the estate and are divided under the inheritance shares (Article 26/VI). This is the one point where the retirement law meets the inheritance rules.

Legal basis and sources

  1. Unified Retirement Law No. 9 of 2014, Articles 1, 21, 25, 26, 27, 28, 33 and 35
  2. Law No. 26 of 2019, Articles 8 and 17 (amending Article 27 and adding paragraph (g) to Article 26)

Frequently asked questions

Is a deceased employee's wife entitled to his pension if she is an employee herself?

A condition of entitlement is that the survivor does not receive a salary. A survivor who is a pensioner in their own right may choose once between their own pension and the larger share under Article 28.

Is a son still entitled after turning 18?

Entitlement continues to 22 if he is still in preparatory school and to 26 if at university or a higher institute, and past 26 only where the medical committee finds a lasting, total disability.

If a daughter marries and is later divorced, does her share return?

Yes. It is restored on divorce or widowhood under amended Article 27, provided the entitlement conditions are met.

Always check the text in force and its amendments in the official source.

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