StaceyHelton

I would suggest calling OPM's retirement services (https://www.opm.gov/retirement-services/contact-retirement/) and asking if a QDRO or similar document was ever filed with them. You can also check with the court where the divorce took place, they can provide a copy if one was filed.

Even if they were no longer legally married, if the participant made an election for them to be the beneficiary, unless the participant had changed or revoked their beneficiary designation, the spouse (or former spouse) is still the beneficiary unless something in the plan states otherwise. See Kennedy v. DuPont (pdf file - https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/08pdf/07-636.pdf).

I used to work for PBGC and was a QDRO Coordinator for 4 years, so I am intimately familiar with how they would administrate such an order. You are correct, the AP would get half of the participant's remaining benefit; any subsequent spouse would be entitled to the remaining survivor benefit. The key would be if the order stated something like "in lieu of the benefits provided in paragraph x" or not. If it did, then the AP would only be entitled to the QPSA benefit, if it did not, then the AP would get both her "separate" share and the QPSA share. Also, although PBGC does not require language dealing with what happens if the participant dies first, most of the QDROs I dealt with still had it; some (not common) even specified that the AP would get nothing if the participant died first. They may no longer allow that (it's been 4 years since I worked there), but it wouldn't surprise me if they did.

Yes, generally to a state agency on behalf of the child. But the way it was handled in the payment system where I worked was that it was a deduction from the participant's benefit; a check went to the state agency, if there was anything left it went to the participant but the participant was taxed on the full pre-QDRO amount. We actually had one participant with a number of child support orders that didn't get any payments for many years, everything went to the agency; the participant did get a 1099-R every year though.

Issue 2 was referring to a child support QDRO, where the AP is not responsible for the taxes, the Participant is. The majority of child support QDROs I have dealt with were for fixed amounts, and they were treated as deductions from the Participant's full amount, so the Participant would be taxed appropriately based on the gross amount. If the taxes were high enough that benefit was lower then the fixed dollar amount, I think we adjusted the taxes to allow for the QDRO to be paid and sent a new W-4P to the participant. Either that, or the system automatically deducted the QDRO before the taxes, I can't recall for certain.

Agreed, I should have worded it to show whatever the plan's QPSA was. When I was at PBGC, one plan had a married normal form of a 65% pop-up. For their QPSA benefit, we'd calculate that benefit, and the surviving spouse would get 65% of what the participant would have received. I haven't actually worked on any plans with a QPSA of 100%; the majority have had the standard 50% of the participant's benefit. And very few of them required the surviving spouse to start at the earliest date available, most allowed the spouse to defer until the participant's NRD (or even RBD in some cases).

Most of the plans that I have worked on provide that the QPSA benefit is calculated as if the participant retired with a 50%J&S benefit immediately prior to the date of death, and the beneficiary receives that 50%. So you calculate the benefit the participant would have been entitled to on that date, and then apply the appropriate J&S reduction factor, then the beneficiary is entitled to the calculated beneficiary amount.

That's different. Every plan I have ever worked on would calculate the increase to the participant's full benefit, then calculate the J&S reduction accordingly. I have never seen a plan increase a QPSA benefit based on the surviving spouse's life expectancy.

At a prior position, we had a participant inquire about the Plan's authority to purchase annuities. The annuities had been purchased and part of the plan pre-ERISA as a way to guarantee the benefits. The successor Plan did amend the Plan recently to specifically allow for annuity purchases as part of a de-risking strategy. It certainly doesn't hurt to amend the plan, and can cover you when a cranky participant requests documentation on the Plan's authority to make such purchases.

Agreed that a shared payment QDRO could grant a former spouse a portion of the participant's benefit, however, once the participant dies, if a new spouse is receiving the surviving spouse benefit, there is no legal way to provide the former spouse any portion of that benefit. When I worked at PBGC, we had a case where a former spouse was trying to get most of the survivor's benefit from the new spouse, however, our QDRO ERISA attorney stated there was absolutely no legal way for that to happen, and that PBGC had litigated a similar case. We refused and disqualified all QDROs that attempted to do so. Edited to add link to PBGC case: https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/USCOURTS-dcd-1_09-cv-01907/pdf/USCOURTS-dcd-1_09-cv-01907-0.pdf

One of the important things not yet mentioned is whether or not your husband has commenced his benefit. If he has not, then the former spouse can get a QDRO designating her as surviving spouse. And although we may disagree with it, the courts can and often do, disregard the property settlement agreement when approving a QDRO. It is up to the participant and/or AP to push the court to have it meet the prior agreement instead of providing the AP more or less then what they are entitled to. However, if your husband has already started his benefit, his form of payment cannot now be changed, no matter what kind of QDRO is issued.

Most QDROs also include a clause stating that successor plans are also bound by the terms of the QDRO. If that is the case, it is highly likely that your ex is entitled to a portion of your disability benefit. Your best bet would be to try and get a new QDRO.

Contact the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC). GM terminated at least one of their plans several years ago, if your benefit is from the plan that was terminated, they may be able to help get it fixed.

Any good divorce attorney should be able to handle it. Unless the divorce decree already meets all of the qualifications for a DRO (I'd suggest a pre-review by the plan to verify), it would probably be easier to just have a separate QDRO approved by a court in NYS.

Any chance of the plan having to pay twice? Doubtful, but courts will sometimes try to tell plans do things that are blatantly against ERISA. The plan should fight any such attempt, since they are not allowed to pay out higher benefits then what the participant is actually entitled to. I know I have had to tell participants and APs that the plan can no longer do anything, they will have to fight it out in court separately. Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, etc.

In addition, may employers cover through the end of the month, regardless of when you terminate employment. Your daughter should definitely find out if that is the case with her current employer (they should tell her during her exit interview, but it doesn't hurt to find out sooner).

I worked at a Field Benefit Administration office for PBGC for 4 years, and I can definitely say that PBGC did not have a time limit on how long after death a QDRO needed to be completed. Question for jpod - if the participant and his spouse had been married at his death, would she have been entitled to a QPSA benefit? If so, I know that PBGC would definitely accept a post-death QDRO. While active plans can do things that PBGC can't, the courts may look to what the regulating agency does for guidance.

There was a similar situation at my last job, except the participant was already in pay. The participant talked to a coworker about getting a new QDRO to terminate the prior QDRO (shared payment order, would have been simple), but she pointed out to him that if things didn't work out with the reconciliation, they would have to do a new order all over again, and it might just be easier to leave it alone. They were both getting their checks, they could deposit them into the same account if they wanted, etc. Turned out to be a good move - the reconciliation didn't work out, and the participant later thanked my coworker.

I'm not sure; my guess would be total earnings. The problem with the free report is that it is total annual earnings, not broken down by employer. The detailed report is broken down by employer *and* year, making it invaluable in correctly calculating pension benefits when records are missing.

But the free statement of earnings that can be obtained from the SS website will probably not help. The auditor may not accept it, as it will not include employer information. The detailed earnings report that does include earnings information is now a flat fee of $136 for non-certified, $192 for certified.

Even if it is considered alimony, the plan should be giving the AP a 1099-R, so she will be taxed on the income. Since the participant is *not* being taxed on the income, it is not deductible for him. With "normal" alimony, the recipient would not be receiving a tax form and the income is not reported directly to the IRS.

I've worked on the TPA side (or PBGC field benefit administration) in Defined Benefits for over a decade, but I've been out of day-to-day administration for the past few years. I'm now on the client side working to help improve procedures with our TPA, clean up records, and various de-risking projects. With the DOL now cracking down on plans that do not do enough to find missing participants, we are in the process of working with our TPA to improve some of the processes they use to administer our pension plan. What are your best practices for finding missing participants (or finding out if they are deceased)? What resources do you use? Do you have different amounts of work you do based on the age and status of the participant? For example, young (not near NRD) term vested participant / term vested nearing NRD / term vested nearing 70.5. How often do you try to find missing participants? Do you review them all at the same time, or on a schedule based on when they became “missing”? Do you do more if the person is in payment status and their payment is suspended due to uncashed checks? What are your best practices for processing a death notification? Do you accept notification of death from financial institutions (for example, a direct deposit is returned with a notice that the account holder is deceased)? What other notifications do you accept? Do you utilize the internet and search obituaries? What free versus paid resources do you use (free being defined as only taking someone’s time)? What do you do for participants that you think are deceased but are not on the Social Security Death Index and you may not have received a notification? If you are at a TPA, are there things that your company does not do and sends to the client to do instead? Are there checklists you use for either process that you would be willing to share?

The former spouse is out of luck regarding a continuing survivor benefit. Once the participant is in pay and has received his first payment, the election is irrevocable and cannot be changed. She should have gotten a QDRO *and filed it with the Plan* when the divorce happened. The plan is under no obligation to enforce something they have not been made aware of. However, if she can *prove* that she filed the QDRO and it was previously qualified, that's a different story. I have had to explain this to multiple APs and Participants over the years. They are generally not happy about it, but there's nothing they can do to change it.