Teachers' Pensions is now assuming that I'm dead

I contacted you a year ago after you wrote about teachers not receiving their pensions because of assumptions that they were dead.

- Anna Tims

I had received six letters essentially informing me that my payments would be stopped unless I confirmed that I was still alive.

Recently the payments did stop, only this time I had not received any letter. It only arrived after I called Teachers' Pensions, dated six weeks earlier.

I am anxious in case I am away when the next letter arrives. The knowledge that pension payments are actually stopped is very scary as this is my main income.

MW, Port Talbot

I featured your case, anonymously, in an exposé in January last year. I'd discovered that retired teachers were receiving annual threats to stop their pensions unless they confirmed that their "circumstances have not changed". That is a polite way of stating that they have been matched to an entry in the register of deaths and have four weeks to prove they are alive before their income is stopped. The letters don't mention death, or the deadline, which the Department for Education (DfE) says is "to avoid causing upset". Partners of deceased teachers were receiving similar letters demanding euphemistically to know if they had taken a new lover.

Madness lies in the fact that even after a pensioner has confirmed that they are not dead, their name is forevermore linked to the deceased stranger in the death register who triggered the match. So, every year, they have to reiterate that it is not them.