Planning for your retirement: What happens when the recipient of a metal workers surplus payout dies before he collects

Many people secure their retirement or the futures of their children by belonging to a pension fund. The Metal Industries Provident fund is one such fund. What happens  is that money paid to them by members is invested and sometimes a suurplus becomes available.

What happens if a member dies before he has claimed his portion of surplus payments .

Well, the Pension Fund Amendments Act 2007 . makes provision that:
1) Pa
st and present members may claim and
2) All qualifying member stakeholders who died on or after 1 April 2008 will be treated as follows:
a) Former members who died on or after 1 April 2008:
The accumulated surplus will be paid to the member’s estate. If no estate exists a next of kin should register an estate with the Master of the High Court. If there is no next of kin the accumulated surplus will be paid to the Master of the High Court.
b) Active members at 1 April 2008 who died subsequently while they were still in active service:
The reason for exit from the MIPF for such a member was his/her death on or after 1 April 2008.
The accumulated surplus will be paid in terms of Section 37C of the Act. This implies that the Board of Trustees need to decide on the distribution of the accumulated surplus amongst the legal beneficiaries.
In these cases there will be a prior Section 37C distribution but additional investigations need to be done by the Trustees e.g. some of the beneficiaries in the prior Section 37C distribution may have died in the interim and such a beneficiary’s distribution should be paid to his/her estate
c) Active members at 1 April 2008 who exited the MIPF after the surplus apportionment date and who died after they exited from the MIPF:
The reason for these members’ exit from the MIPF was for example: resignation, retrenchment, transfer to another fund or retirement. They then passed away after such event.
The accumulated surplus will be paid to the member’s estate. If no estate exists a next of kin should register an estate with the Master of the High Court. If there is no next of kin the accumulated surplus will be paid to the Master of the High Court.

So basically the money will be made available to beneficiaries in various ways: either placed directly into the estate or through the master of the high court. And further investigation will be required in some cases moistly toi establish if beneficiaries are still alive

The Protection of Personal Information Bill

 The Protection of Personal Information Bill was passed into legislation recently but its commencement date has yet to be  announced

The Act is a highly commendable piece of legislation as it gives effect to the constitutionally enshrined right to
privacy.
It makes provision for who may have access to your personal information and under what circumstances and also the manner in which the responsible party is to store such personal information.
There are severe penaties for non compliance but "responsible parties" are given one year to meet the compliance requirements.