Pension Locater Services
I think my deceased husband had a pension but I can’t find the paperwork on it. What can I do?
A pension is a retirement fund, usually provided by your employer. If you or your spouse may have had a pension, it could be worth your time to look for it. A pension can provide you extra money in your retirement years. There are several places to look. If you don’t have paperwork on it, you can:
- try to contact former co-workers who may be getting a pension to find out information about the pension plan;
- if the former employer had a union, you can contact the union (even if you were not a part of the union) to ask about the pension plan;
- contact the pension plan administrator;
- do a computer search under the company name to get current information about the company, and then contact the company.
If you still cannot find the pension plan, you can try searching through the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. (PBGC). This is a federal corporation created to protect the retirement incomes of workers by maintaining pension plans. You can find information about using this search to find a pension here. You can search by the person’s name, company name, or state.
If you cannot find the pension using this search, you can contact the PBGC by mail or email to ask them to help you look for the pension. You can write to them at:
PBGC
1200 K. Street NW
Washington DC 20005
or by email at: missing@pbgc.gov
You should have the employee’s full name, social security number, and date of birth, your current address and phone number and the company name and location. It would be helpful if you also had the dates of employment, the name of the pension plan, and the employer’s federal id number. (You can get the employer’s federal id number from your social security benefit statement, which tells you how much social security benefits you are entitled to receive).
LSC Code 1290900
Last Revised 11-02
