Widows, widowers, and dependents of retired employees receive Social Security survivors' payments. This advantage is especially valuable for young families with children.
The Basics About Survivors Benefits
If a family member passes away, you might be eligible for survivor's benefits. Benefits dependent on the wages of a deceased worker will be available to you and your relatives. To be eligible for pensions, the deceased person had to have served long enough.
Apply for Survivors Benefit
When a family member dies, you should contact your local SSNIT office. You cannot report a death or apply for survivor's compensation through the internet. (I knew you were going to ask. You are welcome) You should visit your local SSNIT office to fill a death reporting form and present evidence of death. Some of the acceptable documents include:
The medical cause of death provided at the hospital
A death certificate is given at the birth and death registry
The funeral poster is also acceptable only if it has the date of death on it
Letter from a religious organization. It should be written and signed by the pastor who performed the burial.
For those family members who died in active service, a letter from the employer is also acceptable.
When filling the death reporting form, you should be ready with the following information:
Name of the deceased
Address
SSNIT number
Name of spouse
Name and contact address of children(both dead and alive)
Name and contact address of siblings(both dead and alive)
Only one member of the family is expected to fill the death reporting form. SSNIT officials will then validate the evidence of death from the source. The evidence validation takes about 1 week
Application Process
After SSNIT officials have validated the evidence of death, the individual nominees will be invited to provide their details including bank account number.
In the case where the beneficiary is outside Ghana or in Ghana but wants their benefit to be received by the next of kin, the process is slightly different. They need to request a form from the SSNIT office, fill and attach their passport picture, and get the form sent to the land commission for a duty stamp. There is a cost for the stamp, which is a form of gift tax paid to the government because the benefits given to the next of kin are treated as gifts. Once the duty stamp is received, send the form back to the SSNIT office.
Once SSNIT officials receive the filled forms and documents(including a signed letter from your bank manager), they perform official processing and disburse the benefits into the beneficiary's accounts. The entire process takes about 1 month. Visit the following websites to get more information about SSNIT:
Comments