The NHS and Social Care Coronavirus Life Assurance Scheme

The NHS and Social Care Coronavirus Life Assurance Scheme paid a £60,000 lump sum to the families of frontline health and social care staff who died of coronavirus. It was set up during the pandemic, ran separately in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and has since closed to new deaths and new claims.

If you are reading this because someone you lost worked in health or social care, the practical position is this: the scheme itself is no longer open, so a fresh claim under it is not possible. What may still be open to you is Bereavement Support Payment, which has a special rule for deaths caused by a workplace accident or a disease caused by work, and the wider bereavement and financial support that exists outside the scheme.

This page explains what the scheme paid, who it covered, when a death qualified, why it closed, and where families can still get help. It is a reference page for a closed scheme, not a route to a new claim.

What the scheme paid: a £60,000 lump sum

The headline figure was £60,000, paid as a single lump sum to the estate or nominated beneficiary of an eligible worker who died of coronavirus. It was paid free of income tax and inheritance tax, which is unusual: most death benefits do not come with that treatment.

To see why that matters, compare it with ordinary life insurance. Life insurance payouts are not taxed as income, but they can be added to the value of an estate and so may be subject to inheritance tax unless the policy is written in trust³. The inheritance tax nil rate band is £325,000 for an individual, or £650,000 for married couples and civil partners⁴. A £60,000 payment that sits outside that calculation is worth more to a family than the same sum paid into an estate.

The scheme was not a pension and not an insurance policy. It was a government scheme, and the £60,000 was a fixed amount rather than a figure calculated from salary, length of service or pensionable pay. That is different from death in service benefits, which are usually a multiple of salary and are paid through a workplace pension scheme. If you want to understand how those work, see death in service and workplace protection benefits.

Where a worker had also been a member of the NHS pension schemes, the £60,000 sat alongside any pension death benefits rather than replacing them. The two came from different sources and were assessed separately.

Who was covered: NHS and social care staff

The scheme was aimed at frontline staff: people working in NHS settings and in social care, in roles where they were exposed to coronavirus. It was not limited to permanent, directly employed staff. Agency workers and bank staff working in eligible roles could qualify, which mattered because a large share of pandemic-era staffing was through agencies and staff banks.

Pension membership was not a condition. Official guidance on the separate NHS Injury Benefit Scheme makes the principle explicit: "you don't have to have been a member of the NHS pension schemes to make a claim"¹. The coronavirus scheme followed the same logic, so a worker who had opted out of the pension, or who had never joined, was not excluded on that ground alone.

Self-employed people working in social care were the hardest group to fit. The scheme was built around employment, and self-employment does not sit neatly inside that structure. If you are trying to work out whether a relative's role qualified, the useful evidence is the employment record: who paid them, what role they were in, and where they worked.

For context on how workplace protection normally treats different working patterns, group life and group critical illness policies from insurers such as Canada Life cover permanent, part-time, temporary, fixed-term and zero-hour employees, and directors, working in the UK⁵. That is the mainstream model the scheme was grafted onto.

When a death qualified under the scheme

A death qualified where the person was an eligible worker and coronavirus was the cause. In practice that meant the death certificate, the employment record and the timing of the death all had to line up. The scheme ran separately in each nation, so the detailed rules and the body that assessed claims differed depending on whether the person worked in England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland.

Timing mattered in two ways. First, the death had to fall within the period the scheme covered. Second, the claim had to be made while the scheme was open. Both windows have now passed, which is why the scheme is described as closed rather than simply finished.

There is a parallel in how other closed schemes behave. The Self-employment Income Support Scheme is now closed but its guidance remains online for reference⁷, and the Warm Homes scheme is described in the same way: "This scheme is closed but we have left the guide here as reference"⁸. Closed status does not erase the rules; it means no new claims can be started.

If a death was caused by a workplace accident or a disease caused by work, a separate route may still be open. Bereavement Support Payment normally requires the partner to have paid National Insurance contributions for at least 25 weeks, but there is an exception: if your partner died due to a workplace accident or illness caused by work, you may still be able to claim even if the contributions condition is not met².

The scheme has closed to new deaths and claims

The scheme is closed. That is the single most important fact on this page, and it changes what a reader can do. No new claim can be started under it, and no new death can be added to it.

What that means in practice depends on where you are. If a claim was already made and paid, nothing changes. If a claim was made and refused, the refusal stands unless there was a review or complaint route you did not use at the time. If no claim was ever made, the scheme is not a route you can now take.

The closure does not affect Bereavement Support Payment, which is a separate benefit with its own rules and its own time limits. It also does not affect any NHS pension death benefits the worker had built up, or any life insurance they held privately or through a workplace scheme.

If a relative died and you are unsure what was claimed at the time, the starting point is the paperwork the estate holds: correspondence from the scheme administrators, the death certificate, and any pension or insurance documents. For lost policies, insurers such as Phoenix Life run tracing services for policies where the paperwork has gone missing¹⁰.

Where families can still get help and support

Bereavement Support Payment is the main benefit still open to people whose partner died. It is administered by the Department for Work and Pensions, and the workplace death exception is the route most likely to apply to families affected by coronavirus caught at work². Claims are made through the normal benefits process, and the payment is not means-tested in the way some benefits are.

Beyond that, support splits into three strands: money, care costs, and practical help.

On money, the Household Support Fund has been running since 6 October 2021 and is delivered through councils¹¹. Housing Benefit can continue while someone is in hospital¹². For people in Northern Ireland, there is separate guidance on help with health costs and travel to hospital¹³.

On care costs, NHS Continuing Healthcare is available in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and where someone qualifies, all their care is paid for, including care home fees¹⁴. Scotland runs a different system, and the Carers UK Scotland guidance covers it¹⁵.

On practical help, Funeral Support Payment is available in Scotland, and there are rules for people who have a life set around a Scottish address but live elsewhere some of the time¹⁶. Free, impartial help is available from MoneyHelper, from bereavement charities, and from the Financial Ombudsman Service if a complaint about a financial firm cannot be resolved with the firm itself¹⁷.

Who ran the scheme and how claims were assessed

The scheme was set up by government with a separate version for each nation, and administered by NHS bodies in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Claims were assessed against the scheme rules: the person's role, the setting they worked in, and whether coronavirus was the cause of death. Decisions rested on the evidence supplied, principally the death certificate and employment records.

That structure is common to government schemes. The Mortgage Guarantee Scheme, for example, is administered by National Savings and Investments on behalf of the Treasury¹⁸, and the Warm Home Discount for park homes is independently administered by Charis Grants Limited¹⁹. Administration by a third party does not change who sets the rules.

For anyone trying to reconstruct what happened with a claim, the useful records are the decision letter, the evidence that was submitted, and any correspondence about a review. If a claim was refused and you believe the refusal was wrong, the route at the time was a review followed by the NHS complaints process for the relevant nation.

For insurance claims more generally, the pattern is similar. Canada Life states that if a claim is not approved, it will tell you why and let you know how to appeal²⁰. MetLife states that if a claim is not accepted, it will write to explain the decision, and you then have the option to appeal²². Those are insurer processes, not scheme processes, but they show the shape of a refusal and appeal.

What can I do if a claim was turned down?

If a claim under the scheme was turned down, the options at the time were a review of the decision and, if you remained unhappy, a complaint through the NHS complaints process for the nation concerned. Those routes have time limits, and for a closed scheme the window for using them has in most cases passed.

If the refusal related to a life insurance or workplace protection policy rather than the scheme, the position is different and may still be live. Insurers set out their own appeal routes: Canada Life says it will explain why a claim was not approved and how to appeal²⁰, and MetLife says it will write to explain the decision, after which you can appeal²². If an appeal fails, the next step is usually the Financial Ombudsman Service, which is free to the consumer.

For bereavement benefits, if a claim for Bereavement Support Payment was refused, the route is a mandatory reconsideration and then an appeal to the Social Security and Child Support Tribunal. That process is separate from anything to do with the coronavirus scheme.

Free help is available throughout. MoneyHelper provides impartial guidance on money and benefits. Bereavement charities provide support with the paperwork and with the emotional side. Neither charges a fee, and neither can reopen a closed scheme.