Former employer won't distribute.

[Guest Mabel]

I terminated my employment in May of 2000. Plan year ended June. I am still waiting for my distribution check which my former employer is continuously delaying and only giving lame excuses. (Latest being the brokerage house is moving). The employer has received all of my signed distribution documents which were required.

Also, I have contacted the DOL as I have been trying to clear up other issues with this pension plan and employer, and was told they don't handle Pension Plans - only the PWBA does. What's up with that?

Thanks for any advice.

[Kristina]

The PWBA (Pension Welfare Benefits Administration) is a division of the DOL. The helpful person at the DOL could have given you a telephone number for the PWBA. The number is available on the PWBA or the DOL website. The number I have is 202/219-8770, but I'm not sure it will be any more helpful than what you will find on the website.

As a Third Party Administrator, I will say that it was not unusual to have four months go by before the valuation of the plan is completed and distributions made. Know that the Plan Administrator is required by law to make the appropriate distribution to you at the appropriate time. Also, you must be aware that the plan document could require that you incur a one-year break in service (a plan year in which you worked less than 500 hours) before a distribution can be made. If so, you will not receive a distribution until next year, based on your termination date and the assumption that you worked full-time. By law the plan document may provide that no distribution be made to you until you have attained Normal Retirement Age. Whatever the plan document provision is, a distribution can not be made until the document allows it.

Getting upset and assuming the plan administrator and the third party administrator are conspiring against you only leads you to making less than pleasant phone calls, which just adds stress to some poor Shmoo doing the work and trying to make it through the day.

You are within your rights to review the full plan document. Call your former employer (or the Plan Administrator listed in your summary plan description) and set up a time to go to their office and read the document. If the document says immediately, then you have grounds to be upset and can discuss it in a civil manner while you are there. If the document says as soon as administratively feasible, then you need to get a definition of that term. If the document says after a one-year break in service (which I doubt as you have already signed the paperwork) then you will have to wait until next year.

Also, your summary plan description has a section as to what steps you must take to make a request or appeal.