Track down your long-lost pension money

By Kathy Kristof

Think you're owed a pension from a company you can no longer find? You may be listed among the missing.

The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. (PBGC), a government agency that stands behind the pension benefits of American workers, is looking for 32,000 people who are owed a collective $133 million from terminated defined-benefit pension plans.

That's after finding more than 22,000 people owed more than $137 million since the effort began in 1996, according to the latest numbers from the PBGC.

These people worked for companies that either went bankrupt or terminated their pension plans without distributing all the pension money to workers. The 32,000 listed among the missing may well be the lucky ones. Thousands of retirees have lost track of their pensions because their former employers have moved, merged, changed their names or been spun off.

Lost pensions are much harder to find in these instances because no government body is looking for these beneficiaries and no electronic database lists their names. These people must search on their own to find the companies that hold their pension money -- a process that can take months.

Regulators believe that the bulk of missing workers on the PBGC list are people who moved or changed their names over the years and didn't think to notify former employers. Those employers subsequently went bankrupt, or turned underfunded pensions over to the government agency that insures them.

Average of $5,000 looking for owner

What these workers left behind is often substantial. The range of specific benefits owed to each individual is vast -- some are owed as little as $1, others as much as $611,000, pension officials said. The average benefit owed is about $5,000.

People who think they may be on the PBGC list can search the agency's beneficiary list on the Web. Those who find themselves among the missing will be instructed to send further identifying information to the agency. It takes a month or two to get a reply.

Those who think they're missing a pension but are not on the PBGC list may have to do further research, says Ellen Bruce, associate director of the New England Pension Assistance Project in Boston.

How to track down your money

There are about a dozen possible channels for tracking down a lost pension, Bruce said. The bulk of these, which range from unions and other former employees to the offices of the various secretaries of state, are listed in a PDF document on the PBGC site called "Finding a Lost Pension." (Or request a paper copy of the publication, in English or Spanish, from the PBGC Communications and Public Affairs Department, 1200 K St. N.W., Room 240, Washington, DC 20005-4026.)

It can be an exhaustive search, however. Some companies have been purchased and merged half a dozen times, which can make following the pension trail difficult.

That's one reason pension experts say it's wise to first consider whether it's worth searching.

Continued: Stay in touch with your companies

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