Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority
Circular No: PFRDA/2022/27/ASP-EXIT/01 | Dated: 19th Oct 2022
To,
All the NPS stakeholders
Subject: Handling NPS corpus of deceased Subscribers meant for purchase of Annuity
The exit and withdrawals under NPS are handled as per the provisions of PFRDA (Exits and withdrawals under NPS) Regulations 2015 and amendments there under.
It is observed that in certain cases, the subscribers post availing lump sum had met with unfortunate death but before issuance of annuity and the amount meant for Annuity lie in CRA System. In such cases, the following are the guidelines which can be applicable to handle the corpus meant for issue of Annuity,
1. Government Sector subscribers:
The annuity shall mandatorily be purchased by the spouse (if any) providing annuity for life of the spouse with provision for return of purchase price (ROP). On demise the spouse, the annuity be re-issued to the family members in the order specified hereunder at the rate of premium prevalent at the time of purchase of the annuity, utilizing the purchase price required to be returned under the annuity contract until the family members in the order specified below are covered,
(i) Living dependent mother of the deceased subscriber
(ii) Living dependent father of the deceased subscriber
After the coverage of the family members specified above, the purchase price or the amount which was to be utilized for purchase of annuity shall be returned to the surviving children of the subscriber and in the case of absence of children, to the other legal heir(s) of the subscriber, as the case may be.
2. All citizen and Corporate subscribers:
Entire accumulated pension wealth paid to the nominees or legal heirs. However, the legal heirs or nominees if opted for can buy the annuity.
NPS Trust (NPST), POPs, Corporate and Nodal Officers can engage with all those claimants of those deceased Subscribers who have availed lump sum but not bought Annuity as per the provisions mentioned above.
NPS Trust informed to monitor the progress and engage with the respective nodal officers, Subscribers, POPs, corporate and stakeholders in order to ensure all pending death claims processed in a timely manner.
Chief General Manager
