Update your pension wishes

People drawing occupational and personal pensions have been warned to update provisions for what happens to the remaining pot of money when they die. In law, the trustees of the scheme have to decide where the money goes, and will usually follow the ‘expression of wishes’ completed by the scheme member. But if this is out of date, it can be challenged – the Telegraph cited the example of a man whose expression of wish left the pot to his daughters by a first marriage. But he then remarried without changing the expression of wish, and when he died the new wife contested the payments and had her challenge upheld by the Pension Ombudsman.