Death benefit payment

A death benefit payment is money that’s payable after a Media Super member passes away. It will include: 

• the member’s super balance, and 

• an insurance benefit paid after their death, if the member held insurance cover with Media Super when they died. 

There are laws about who a super fund can pay a death benefit to. In most cases, the benefit goes to:

• The member’s dependants, who must be either:
  • their surviving current spouse (including same-sex, married or de-facto),
  • their surviving child/children (including adopted, outside of marriage and step),
  • someone who was financially dependent on them, or
  • someone they were in an interdependency relationship with.

• The member’s legal personal representative.

The member might have chosen who they want to receive their death benefit by making a binding beneficiary nomination. 

You can find more information about eligible beneficiaries on our Nominate a beneficiary page.

Our goal is to work with you to ensure we receive all the information needed to assess your claim as soon as possible. We may need you to provide certain documents and information. We’ll let you know if that’s the case.  

If the member had a valid binding death benefit nomination in place when they died, we’ll pay the death benefit to the people nominated in the proportions chosen. A valid binding death benefit nomination makes it much faster for us to pay the death benefit. 

If the member hasn’t made a valid binding death benefit nomination, their death benefit will be paid to either their surviving current spouse, their surviving children or their estate in the following order of priority: 

• If the member has a surviving current spouse – we’ll pay their entire benefit to their surviving current spouse (including same-sex, married or de facto).   
• If the member doesn't have a surviving current spouse – their benefit will be divided equally among their surviving children (including adopted and outside of marriage).  
• If the member doesn’t have a surviving current spouse or any surviving children – their benefit will be paid to their estate.  

In special circumstances, where we're not able to pay the death benefit to the member's estate, their death benefit may be transferred to the ATO.

We understand that this may be a difficult time for you, so we aim to make the process as simple as possible. If you decide to use a lawyer or another third party to make a claim on your behalf, you’ll need to complete a Third party authority - Death Claims (PDF) form.