Death Benefits

Overview

In the event of your death, available death benefits will be paid to your designated beneficiary or beneficiaries that you indicated when you enrolled in ACERA or subsequently designated on one of our forms.

Report a Death

Active Member Death Benefits

In the event of your death during active membership, the appropriate death benefit will be paid to your designated beneficiary(ies) that you indicated when you enrolled in ACERA or subsequently through an ACERA Active or Deferred member Beneficiary Designation Form. The death benefits available to your beneficiaries are detailed below.

Being a “vested” member of ACERA means you have at least 5 years of ACERA service credit, or a combined 5 years of ACERA service credit and reciprocal service credit.

Active Member Death Benefits

Benefit Options
Upon member’s death, eligible beneficiaries will choose 1 option:
Who is Eligible: Beneficiary Can Be:

1. Lump Sum Death Benefit*

Return of employee contributions and interest

 

PLUS

 

One month of salary for each year of service, not to exceed 6 months of salary

Both
Non-Vested and Vested members
Anyone You Name
Funds will be divided equally among multiple beneficiaries where a percentage is not specified.

2a. Non-Service Connected Death Allowance

Beneficiary will receive the greater of 1.) a monthly payment of approximately 20% of member’s Final Average Salary (which is 60% of a non-service-connected disability retirement allowance), OR 2.) a monthly payment of 60% of what the member’s unmodified retirement allowance would have been, calculated as of the date of death.

Vested members

Spouse, State-Registered Domestic Partner, or Alameda County Domestic Partner
Allowance is paid for the lifetime of the spouse, state-registered domestic partner, or Alameda County domestic partner.

 

Eligible Children
If there is no surviving spouse, state-registered domestic partner, or Alameda County domestic partner, unmarried children may collectively elect the monthly allowance, to be divided equally among them. Each unmarried child’s allowance lasts until age 18 or, if a full-time student at an accredited school, to age 22. Children older than this are not eligible.

 

Adopted children are eligible.

2b. Service-Connected Death Allowance

Beneficiary will receive 100% of a service-connected disability retirement allowance, calculated as of the date of death, if death was connected with employment.

Both
Non-Vested and Vested members

3. Lump Sum / Allowance Combination Death Benefit*

Combined benefit, including both a lump-sum amount and a reduced monthly allowance payment.

Vested members

*If the active member’s beneficiary—who is a spouse, state-registered domestic partner, Alameda County domestic partner, or legally appointed guardian of the member’s unmarried children under age 18—chooses a lump sum payment, the account will earn interest up to the date of payment.

Active Death Information Sheet

 

Safety Member Additional Service-Connected Active Death Benefits

Benefit
Upon member’s death, eligible beneficiaries will receive all benefits below that apply:
Eligibility Beneficiary can be
Service-Connected Lump Sum Payment
A one-time lump-sum payment equal to the annual compensation earnable or pensionable compensation as described in California Code Section 31787.6.
Both
Non-Vested and Vested safety members

Spouse, State-Registered Domestic Partner, or Alameda County Domestic Partner

Additional benefits are added to the benefits of the spouse, state-registered domestic partner, or Alameda County domestic partner.

Service-Connected Additional Allowance
If Spouse, State-Registered Domestic Partner, or Alameda County domestic partner selects allowance, payment is increased by a percentage for eligible children as detailed in California Code Section 31787.5. Payments are made until age 18 or, if a full-time student at an accredited school, to age 22.
Both
Non-Vested and Vested safety members

Spouse, State-Registered Domestic Partner, or Alameda County Domestic Partner

Additional benefits are added to the benefits of the spouse, state-registered domestic partner, or Alameda County domestic partner.

 

Deferred Member Death Benefits

If your death occurs while you are in a deferred member status with ACERA (you are no longer working as an active ACERA member but are not yet retired), your beneficiary(ies) will be receive a return of your retirement contributions plus interest as of the date of death. No additional death benefits are offered to your beneficiaries.

Retiree Death Benefits

Retirees can name beneficiaries for four different kinds of benefits payable after the retiree’s death:

  • Monthly continuance payments 
  • A one-time $1,000 lump-sum death benefit (as long as there are funds in the SRBR)
  • Any retirement benefit allowance earned but not yet paid to the retiree at the time of the retiree’s death. This benefit covers the portion of the last month’s benefit payment payable for the portion of the month up to the retiree’s death (death pro-rated benefit)
  • A refund of excess contributions if, when all monthly retirement payments have been made, the total payments made to the beneficiary are less than the retiree’s contributions and interest on deposit with ACERA.

See Retiree Death Benefits page for more details on retiree death benefits.

 

For these lump sum death benefits, rather than receiving payment in one lump sum, the beneficiary may elect to receive the payment in monthly installments over a period of up to ten years, with interest paid on the unpaid balance at ACERA’s annual inflation assumption rate, which is currently 2.75% per annum (compounded monthly).