How to Claim EPF, Pension and Insurance After a Member's Death: The Complete EPFO Guide

When someone who worked a salaried job passes away, their family is usually owed not one amount but three, and many families collect only the first:

The EPF balance: everything the member and employer contributed, with interest.
A monthly EPS pension for the widow or widower, children, or dependent parents.
EDLI insurance of up to Rs 7 lakh: a life cover that comes free with every EPF account, which most families have never heard of.

As of March 2026, over Rs 9,300 crore sits in inoperative EPF accounts. A large part of that is death claims never filed. This guide covers the entire process.

Important. If a member dies while in service, the EPF account keeps earning interest for a while but becomes inoperative three years after death. File as early as you can; the family loses nothing by filing fast and can lose interest by waiting.

Free tool. Answer five questions and get a personalised claim plan with the letters written for you: open the Recovery Navigator.

What each benefit is

Benefit	What the family receives	Who can claim
EPF (Form 20)	The full accumulated balance with interest	Nominee; else family members; else legal heirs
EPS pension (Form 10-D)	Monthly pension for widow/widower plus up to two children under 25, or dependent parents	Eligible family members
EDLI (Form 5-IF)	Insurance payout, up to Rs 7 lakh, linked to the member’s salary	Nominee; else family; else legal heirs

You do not choose between them. A family entitled to all three should claim all three, and one combined form does it.

The one form to know: the Composite Death Claim Form

EPFO merged the three separate forms into a single Composite Claim Form in Death Cases. Filing it once claims the PF balance, the pension and the EDLI amount together. You can still file the individual forms, but there is rarely a reason to.

Route 1: Claim online (fastest, when it works)

The online route works when the member’s UAN is active, Aadhaar-seeded, and e-nomination was completed on the member portal.

Go to the EPFO Member portal’s death-claim filing section.
Enter the member’s UAN and the nominee’s Aadhaar; both are verified by OTP on the nominee’s Aadhaar-linked mobile.
Fill the composite claim, choosing all applicable benefits (PF, pension, EDLI).
Upload the death certificate, the nominee’s bank details with a cancelled cheque, and photographs as asked.
Submit and note the claim reference number for tracking.

Tip. EPFO’s stated norm for death claims is priority processing, and if a properly completed claim is not settled within 30 days, EPFO is liable to pay 12 percent annual interest on the delay. Quote this politely when following up.

Route 2: Claim offline (when e-nomination was never done)

Most deaths of older members fall here, because e-nomination did not exist for most of their working life.

Download the Composite Death Claim Form from the EPFO site, or collect it from the regional EPFO office.
Fill it in, signed by the claimant. Where there is no nomination, all eligible family members sign, or the guardian signs for minors.
Get the form attested by the last employer. If the establishment is closed, a bank manager, gazetted officer, magistrate or similar authority can attest.
Attach the documents below and submit at the regional EPFO office that held the member’s account.

Documents to attach

Document	Notes
Death certificate	Certified copy
Claimant’s Aadhaar and PAN	For each claimant
Cancelled cheque	Of the account receiving the money, in the claimant’s name
Member’s details	UAN, or PF number and establishment details
Date-of-birth proofs of children	For pension claims for children
Legal heir certificate	Only when there is no nomination and no eligible family under the schemes
Scheme certificate, if any	For prior pension service

Timelines, honestly

Stage	Time
Online claim, clean Aadhaar-seeded case	Often settled in 1 to 3 weeks
Offline claim, complete documents	Roughly 15 to 30 days
Cases with missing KYC, name mismatches, closed employers	1 to 3 months, sometimes longer
Pension	Starts after the claim is approved, paid monthly thereafter

Where claims actually get stuck

Aadhaar not seeded to the UAN. The online route fails entirely; use the offline route.
Name or date-of-birth mismatch between Aadhaar and EPFO records. Fix via a joint declaration through the employer, or attach supporting affidavits offline.
The employer no longer exists. Use alternate attestation (bank manager or gazetted officer); the claim is still valid.
Nobody knew the UAN. Search old salary slips and emails. The employer’s HR or the EPFO office can trace accounts from the establishment code and name.
EDLI never claimed. Families claim the PF balance and stop. The insurance is a separate, automatic entitlement. Always tick it.

The checklist to save

Locate the UAN from salary slips, the employer, or the member portal.
Get 10 to 15 certified copies of the death certificate.
Check whether e-nomination existed; it decides online versus offline.
File the Composite Death Claim Form claiming PF, pension and EDLI together.
Attach a cancelled cheque per claimant and keep photocopies of everything.
Note the claim number, and follow up every week after day 30, citing the interest rule.

Why we wrote this

The EDLI insurance alone is up to Rs 7 lakh that grieving families routinely never claim, purely because nobody told them it existed. That is the whole story of unclaimed money in India: not locked doors, just unshared information. Parampara is where you write down your UAN, your nominations and everything else your family would need, in a vault only they can open. Write it down once, while it is easy.