Lost Pension Plan Benefit Search

To further complicate matters, unclaimed pension benefits generally will not show up in state unclaimed property databases, and in many cases pension obligations have been transferred to a successor company after a merger or reorganization. {If you are certain a company merged with or was acquired by another but don't know which one, go to: Company Search}

Because many private pension plans are federally insured, even if a company dissolved or went bankrupt it may be possible to receive unclaimed benefits. The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) is the federal agency responsible for the regulation of private pension plans. PBGC is a federal corporation created under ERISA. It currently guarantees payment of basic pension benefits earned by about 44 million American workers and retirees participating in over 35,000 private-sector defined benefit pension plans.

The Pension Search Program, initiated in 1996, attempts to locate those entitled to unclaimed pension benefits. As of January 2005, 22,000 people eligible to claim $80 million in pension benefits from terminated defined benefit pension plans have not been located. Benefits range from $1 to $295,298, averaging about $3,774. New York (4,622), California (2,617), Texas (1,606), New Jersey (1,334) and Pennsylvania (1,170) have the most missing participants.

Note: Thousands of employees of companies whose pension plans were terminated between 1976 and 1981 may be eligible to receive payments averaging $10-12,000 as a result of a settlement reached in recent a class action lawsuit. For information on tracing and claiming a lost pension and to search the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation (PBGC) missing participant database complete the form below.