Who gets your occupational pension when you die?
In Sweden the answer is set by one checkbox. It is called återbetalningsskydd, most people have never seen it, and almost nobody chose how it was set.
What it is
Återbetalningsskydd is a survivor benefit inside your occupational pension (tjänstepension). If you die, the capital you have earned is paid to your beneficiaries — first a spouse, registered partner or cohabiting partner, then children. Parents and siblings cannot be beneficiaries; the group is fixed by law.
If you die without it
Nothing from that pension reaches your family. The capital stays in the insurance collective and is shared out to other savers in your age group who also lack the protection — people you never met. It is called arvsvinster, inheritance gains. An occupational pension is formally an insurance, and without a beneficiary it ends with you.
What it costs to keep
No fee is deducted. The price is that you give up inheritance gains from everyone else. According to Pensionsmyndigheten, the Swedish Pensions Agency, removing the protection raises your occupational pension by roughly 6 to 10 percent depending on when you remove it — and keeping it costs more the older you get.
Do you have it?
It depends on how the box was set when you started, not on a choice you remember. Riksrevisionen, the national audit office, found that at one provider 80 of 100 still had the protection at retirement — at another, under the same agreement, only 19 of 100. Since April 2026 minpension.se shows the protection for every occupational pension you hold. Of 13.5 million policies in that register, 1.6 million have it and 11.9 million do not.
Changing it
Removing it is free and often takes a single click. Adding it back usually requires a health declaration, and the provider can refuse. After a family event — marriage, a new cohabiting partner, a child — there is a limited window to add it without screening; under the ITP agreement, twelve months. The audit office has criticised exactly this one-way door.
Where your box lives
Which administrator holds your box is decided by where you work, not by you. The agreement and company names below stay in Swedish — they are what you will see on screen.
- Private sector, blue-collarAvtalspension SAF-LO · Fora
- Private sector, white-collarITP · Collectum · avtalat.se
- Municipality or regionAKAP-KR · Pensionsvalet
- Central governmentPA 16 · SPV
Not sure where you belong? minpension.se lists every occupational pension you have, and now shows the protection for each one.
The step-by-step guide is still in Swedish. It is mostly menu names you will need in Swedish anyway.