Pension Problem: ZUS Will Recalculate Payments

• In July, widows' pension payments began, which allows people to combine their own benefits with the survivor's pension after their deceased spouse.
• Most seniors entrusted ZUS with choosing the more advantageous option.
• If someone feels they are receiving too little, they can submit a new application and choose a different payment option.

Payments of a new benefit, the widow's pension, began in July. This allows the deceased spouse's survivor's pension to be combined with their own benefit. However, the maximum widow's pension cannot exceed three times the minimum pension, which is currently PLN 5,636.73 gross. This amount is valid from March 1, 2025, to December 28, 2026.

Under the widow's pension, you can choose to pay:

• 100% of the survivor's pension and 15% of the own benefit;
• 100% of own benefit and 15% of survivor's pension;
• from 1 January 2027, the second benefit will be paid at 25%;

The right to receive benefits, including survivors' pension, ceases if the person concerned remarries.

According to "Fakt," the average widow's pension payment is PLN 355 gross per month. What if someone feels they made a bad decision and their widow's pension is underpaid?

Then such a person must submit another application to establish the payment of benefits and select a specific option or leave this choice to the institution, Bartosz Gaca, director of the pension and disability benefits department at ZUS, told the daily.

The newspaper explains that ZUS analyses show that seniors most often leave the choice of the most advantageous widow's pension option to ZUS. "Such an option, occurring in over 60% of cases, is a combination of 100% of the survivor's pension and 15% of the beneficiary's own benefit," Bartosz Gaca told "Fakt."