Company refuses to acknowledge beneficiary form because a confirmation form wasn't filed.

[katieinny]

A plan participant completes beneficiary forms for the company's retirement plans, then dies a couple of years later. The company says that because the validation form that was sent to confirm the named beneficiaries was not returned, the plan assets must go to the participant's estate. I suppose the named beneficiaries can hire an attorney and appeal. Is getting a second form to validate the first form becoming a trend, or is this company out of line?

[ETA Consulting LLC]

There is still an 'argument' that the company imposed this standard and did nothing over the two years to follow up on the form. It's one thing to send someone through hoops; but when two years lapse with no followup, that could be an issue.

Good Luck!

[GMK]

If the company provided the participant a clear, written warning of the consequences of failure to file the validation form, namely, that the benefits go to the estate, then I don't see why the company would need to do a follow up. If such warning is in amongst the fine print, then there may be an issue.

And presumably the company applies this policy uniformly in all cases.

[BG5150]

What. Does. The. Plan. Say?

Often there is a hierarchy in who is the beneficiary already built into the plan document.

[masteff]

This probably needs the plan's ERISA atty to be involved.

What is meant by a "validation form"? Was something on the original BDF incomplete such that they had to request clarification? Or was it merely "here's what you told us, is it right?" Does the plan actually specify this procedure or is this some bureaucratic policy that someone made up?

If the plan didn't fully reject the BDF but merely held it for validation, then federal case law may fall on the side of the named beneficiaries. For example: https://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F3/297/297.F3d.558.01-3143.html

Of course, following BG's line of thought above, is the plan's default bene the same or different that what's on the form?