Overview
PBGC collects information about pension plans it insures, but much of that information is at the plan level. PBGC only collects information about individuals’ benefits in limited situations. This resource explains further.
Many individuals reach out to the Office of the PBGC Participant and Plan Sponsor Advocate or to other departments within the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) seeking information about their benefits. Often, individuals are able to provide only a name and other personal information, such as a Social Security number, date of birth, street address or other contact information. They may be seeking information about a pension benefit they earned themselves, or they may be looking for information about a pension benefit earned by a spouse, parent, grandparent or other relative.
This fact sheet will provide some background information about when PBGC does and does not have information related to a person’s individual pension benefit, as well as tips for obtaining helpful benefit information from PBGC.
Quick facts
PBGC is a federal agency that insures thousands of pension plans sponsored by private employers. PBGC keeps records and information about these plans, but only has records related to individual people who have earned benefits under these plans in limited situations. Most of the time, that information is only kept by the pension plan itself.
Direct contact information for many ongoing pension plans can be located by searching PBGC’s online list of plans currently paying PBGC premiums. If PBGC does not have the information you are seeking, but the pension plan is ongoing, you can contact the plan directly.
When a pension plan PBGC insures does not have the funding to pay all the benefits it owes, PBGC may become responsible for administering benefits under that plan. In that case, the pension plan will transfer its individual benefit records to PBGC. Once PBGC has had time to process this information, Staff at PBGC’s Customer Contact Center ((800) 400-7242) can then look up individuals by name to locate information about their benefits.
If you were told your pension benefit moved to PBGC, but the Customer Contact Center cannot locate benefit records under your name, contact the Office of the PBGC Participant and Plan Sponsor Advocate. It is possible that PBGC has this information but is still processing it.
When a pension plan terminates with enough funding to pay participants the benefits it owes, it is called a “standard termination.” When this happens, PBGC will receive limited information about individuals who were owed benefits when the plan terminated. To locate this information, you can make a FOIA request to PBGC’s Disclosure Division or reach out to the Office of the PBGC Participant and Plan Sponsor Advocate for pension tracing assistance. The Customer Contact Center does not have this information. You may need to provide PBGC the plan name and identification number in addition to information about the person who earned the benefit.
PBGC will not have any records for retirement plans that it does not insure, like 401(k) plans, except for records it has received through its expanded Missing Participants Program. Learn about what retirement plans PBGC insures.
Further education
When can PBGC look up an individual’s pension benefit information by name?
Trusteed plans
PBGC may become responsible for administering a pension plan if the pension plan is unable to pay earned benefits to its participants. These pension plans are called trusteed plans. In these cases, PBGC will work with the trusteed pension plan to transfer its benefit records to PBGC. In some cases, PBGC staff will travel to the location of the pension plan’s record-keeping facilities to gather on-site physical records.
Once PBGC receives individual benefit records from a trusteed plan, it will process that information into its electronic systems, which then enable PBGC staff to look up individuals’ benefit information by name for those plans.
The time that it takes for PBGC to obtain and process records can vary significantly depending on the systems that the pension plan uses to maintain its records and the size and complexity of the pension plan. Additionally, the quality and thoroughness of the records PBGC receives can vary depending on the original pension plan’s recordkeeping practices.
Search PBGC’s list of trusteed plans.
Missing Participants Program
When a pension plan terminates with enough funds to pay the benefits it owes, it must pay those benefits. However, there may be individuals who have earned benefits but whom the pension plan can’t locate. These are called missing participants. The plan may send these individuals’ benefits to PBGC under PBGC’s Missing Participants Program. Learn more about PBGC’s Missing Participants Program.
If someone’s benefit was sent to PBGC through its Missing Participants Program, PBGC staff should be able to look up that individual’s benefit information using the individual’s name and other personal identifying information. Additionally, individuals can search for their own benefits under this program online.
Record processing delays
There have been some past situations in which individuals received notice from their pension plans that their benefits had moved to PBGC and then contacted PBGC to claim their benefits, but were told by PBGC that it had no record of their benefits. This was because PBGC had their benefit records but had not yet processed them. If you were told by your employer or pension plan that PBGC has your benefit, but when you called PBGC to claim your benefit you were told PBGC had no records under your name, contact the Office of the PBGC Participant and Plan Sponsor Advocate.
When PBGC cannot look up individual pension benefit information by name, can it still provide other helpful information?
Yes. PBGC maintains plan-level information for all of the pension plans that it insures. If the plan is still operating, this includes current contact information for the plan.
PBGC maintains records of when plans merged with one another or transferred to a new plan sponsor. For this reason, the Office of the Advocate can use PBGC records to help individuals track down a current point of contact for a pension plan they are struggling to locate. Learn more about the Office of the Advocate’s Pension Tracing Service.
When pension plans terminate with enough funds to pay all the benefits they owe, this is called a standard termination. Plans undergoing standard termination are not trusteed by PBGC, but they are still required to file certain information with PBGC. This includes whether the plan had any missing participants, and whether benefits were paid as lump sums or annuities or both. If annuities were purchased, plans must provide the name of the annuity provider.
Additionally, plans undergoing standard termination are required to provide PBGC with a list of individuals to whom lump sum payments were made and/or for whom annuities were purchased. This is called the plan’s distribution and annuity purchase data. This data is not loaded into the systems that PBGC uses to look up individuals’ benefits under trusteed plans. If an individual earned a benefit under a plan that underwent standard termination and later contacts PBGC’s Customer Contact Center, the Contact Center agent will not be able to locate benefit information by looking up that individual’s name, even though PBGC may have records related to that person’s benefit. This is because the role of PBGC’s Customer Contact Center is to assist individuals whose benefits are administered by PBGC because PBGC trusteed their pension plans.
Rather, distribution and annuity purchase data is stored in the standard termination file that PBGC maintains for the plan for several years after the plan terminates. To obtain distribution and annuity purchase data from a plan’s standard termination file, you can submit a FOIA request to PBGC’s Disclosure Division.
A plan’s distribution and annuity purchase data plays an important role when PBGC is reviewing a Potentially Omitted Participant claim. For more information, see Can my pension plan end without paying me?