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I agree with my immediate predecessor responder. I respectfully dissent a whole lot from at least one of the prior commentators. First, the QJSA/QPSA provisions must be used by every pension plan, i.e., both DB and money purchase DC plans. Second, the QJSA/QPSA provisions must be used for any other plan (i.e., profit sharing plans) unless the drafter takes advantage of the exception granted to such plans by drafting the plan to contain (or the AA option election that activates) the three conditions stated in the regulation for the profit sharing plan to be exempt from the QJSA/QPSA rules. The first condition is that 100% of the participant's account balance is the spousal death benefit. Both of my enumerated statements are right out of the first sentences of Regulation 1.401(a)-20 Q&A#3. You should try to find the "no-QJSA/QPSA" provisions in the plan. If you have a DC basic plan document with a QJSA/QPSA Section, and you do not see that non-QJSA/QPSA language in that Section, then there will be another Section with those provisions, and in that case, there should also be an AA option referring to the latter Section, and which would need to be selected if there was to be no QJSA/QPSA). For the basic plan document, a good search term is "412" because the plan most likely mimics the regulation, i.e., "for plans not subject to 412,..." The regulation is copied below. That means that for profit sharing rule that contains the three provisions in the cited regulation for the account balance to be free of the QJSA/QPSA rules, the new spouse is the beneficiary unless that spouses waives his or her right to 100% of the participant's account balance. I agree with the statement that 100% of all death benefits must go to the beneficiary, but the term "beneficiary" will be defined by the plan to first confer spousal benefits and then refer the employer to examine the designation form if the spouse has so consented to non-spouse beneficiaries. It sounds like the participant made the assumption that the old designation would survive. Not so. Just like participants should re-do designation forms immediately upon divorce (so as not to inadvertently leave their ex as still being the beneficiary they specifically designated), they should re-do them immediately upon marriage, at least if there are to be non-spouse beneficiaries. In the absence of a QDRO saying otherwise, the old designation form must yield to the language in the PS/K plan that likely states something along the regulatory lines of: (1) The plan provides that the participant's nonforfeitable accrued benefit is payable in full, upon the participant's death, to the participant's surviving spouse (unless the participant elects, with spousal consent that satisfies the requirements of section 417(a)(2), that such benefit be provided instead to a designated beneficiary); (2) The participant does not elect the payment of benefits in the form of a life annuity; and (3) With respect to the participant, the plan is not a transferee or an offset plan. (See Q&A 5 of this section.)

Doesn't 401(a)(11)(B)(iii) make the spouse the default beneficiary in a PSP? So, I don't see how the current spouse doesn't have a right to the benefit unless there is a QDRO issue.

But not as much as when you have tweetle beetles in a puddle paddle battle with their paddles in a bottle, which is a tweetle beetle bottle puddle paddle battle muddle.