Eligible Rollover?

[luissaha]

Participant passes away and does not cash a few months of pension checks received before his death.  He was receiving a single life annuity.  Under the terms of the plan, the amount of the un-cashed checks is payable to the participant's beneficiary in a single, lump sum.  Is this one-time payment part of a series of periodic payments not eligible to be rolled over?  Or, could it be characterized as a non-periodic payment because it is being paid in a lump sum?  Not sure how to handle this.

[My 2 cents]

I am not a lawyer but (a) amounts payable to the participant prior to death ought to be paid to the participant's estate not the beneficiary under the plan (who would, even under whatever the plan's provisions may be, only be due amounts payable after the participant's death - which would be $0 for a single life annuity) and (b)  it is my understanding that the uncashed checks could not be characterized as a "lump sum payment", even if being replaced by a single aggregated check.

[Mike Preston]

I read the OP a bit differently.  Certainly the uncashed checks to the extent they represented payments for periods prior to death are part of the periodic payments, can't be rolled over and are cashable by the estate.  Any uncashed checks to the extent they represent payments for periods after death should be returned, uncashed, to the plan.  The death benefit payable to the beneficiary is rollable.

Now, where it gets confusing is if there are checks which represent payments for periods after death which the plan allows to be cashed by the beneficiary and then reduces the death benefit payable by the amount of those checks.  In such a case I would treat the entirety of the death benefit as a lump sum eligible for rollover.

[My 2 cents]

The original post described the benefit as a single life annuity.  As such, there can never be any payments made with respect to periods after the death of the annuitant.  Any checks for periods after the death of the annuitant would have been issued in error.

If the form involves a certain period (certain and life), it should not be described just as a single life annuity (which bears a strong implication that it is payable for a period if and only if the annuitant is alive).

[luissaha]

Just to clarify, the payments at issue were made prior to the participant's death.  For whatever reason (sickness, moved?)  the participant did not cash the checks.  The amounts need to be paid to someone.  What I gather from the responses is that these payments are non-periodic payments that cannot be rolled over and must be paid to the participant's estate.

[Mike Preston]

Drop the "non-" part and you've got it!