| Because they are long-term investments
payable well into the future, pension benefits often
slip through the cracks. Company pension administrators typically make little effort to locate
lost beneficiaries who may have moved or changed name
over the years, and many companies themselves move,
change name, merge or are acquired by others, making them
difficult to trace. Even if a former employer had an
underfunded plan or is no longer in business, one should
not necessarily assume benefits are lost. The Pension Benefit Guaranty
Corporation (PBGC) is the federal agency responsible for the regulation
of private pension plans. PBGC currently guarantees payment of basic
pension benefits earned by about 44 million American workers and
retirees participating in over 35,000 private-sector defined benefit
pension plans.
More than 22,000 people
eligible to claim $80 million in pension benefits from terminated
defined benefit pension plans are currently missing. Benefits range from
$1 to $295,298, averaging about $3,774. New York (4,622), California
(2,617), Texas (1,606), New Jersey (1,334) and Pennsylvania (1,170) have
the most missing participants. For assistance locating lost pension
benefits go to:
Lost Pension Search
Note: to
find out if a company no longer in existence merged with
or was acquired by another, go to:
Company Search For information on
government unclaimed pension benefits go to:
Government Pension Search
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