Pension Benefit Recovery

[Guest Julie]

We had a retiree pass away on 5/27 and we were not notified until 7/20 when her 7/1 pension check was returned to us. We were, of course, able to recover the 7/1 check since it was returned, but we have been unable to recover the 6/1 pension check.

I sent a letter to the retiree's sister, who sent me to her neice, who sent me to her daughter, who sent me to the greatneice of the woman who lived with our retiree. Apparently, the woman who lived with our retiree (they had a joint bank account) is now in a nursing home with Alzheimers. The greatneice just called and said she doesn't know what happened to the 6/1 check. And, everyone else I've dealt with is refusing to repay the 6/1 benefit.

The pension check has cleared our bank account and we're in the process of getting a copy of the endorsed check. But, I'm not sure that will even do us any good.

Not sure what to do at this point. Will our plan be in violation of any ERISA rules/regs if that benefit is never returned to the pension fund?

Help!!

[david rigby]

A recent discussion thread on the topic of recovering pension benefits paid after a retiree's death:

http://benefitslink.com/boards/index.php?showtopic=29610&hl=

Use the Search feature to find others. For example, searching only in the DB forum with the keyword of "deceased" produced this list:

http://benefitslink.com/boards/index.php?a...ghlite=deceased

Other forums and/or keywords may also be useful.