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So you received an SSA notice (Form L99)

Overview

A Notice of Potential Private Retirement Benefit Information from the Social Security Administration provides info about retirement benefits you earned. This resource explains why you received a notice and how it’s helpful.

Have you recently received a Notice of Potential Private Retirement Benefit Information from the Social Security Administration (SSA)?

The Notice of Potential Private Retirement Benefit Information is also called Form SSA-L99-C1 – here we’ll call it a “Form L99” for short. You may have questions about what the Form L99 is, what it means for your retirement benefit, how to read the information it contains, and how a Form L99 can be useful to you. Because the PBGC Office of the Advocate handles many questions about Form L99s, we have provided some helpful quick facts for your reference.

 

Quick facts

If you received a Form L99, that means you earned a benefit from the retirement plan listed on the form. A Form L99 can be used to prove you earned a retirement benefit when you go to make a benefit claim with your retirement plan.

You will receive a Form L99 for each retirement plan in which you earned a benefit, so it is possible to receive multiple Form L99s. It is also possible to receive zero Form L99s if you have never earned a retirement benefit through an employer.

The Social Security Administration automatically sends Form L99s to individuals who have applied for Social Security Benefits. You can also request one after leaving the employment where you earned a retirement benefit.

Form L99s sometimes contain a dollar amount. These dollar amounts are estimates, are not always accurate, and shouldn’t be relied on for any financial planning purposes.

While a Form L99 proves you earned a retirement benefit, it does not prove that you are still owed a benefit, because it is possible you were paid after your benefit was reported.

What is the Form L99 and why did I receive it?

Often, an employee earns a retirement benefit – such as a pension or 401(k) – with an employer but leaves before they are eligible or ready to start collecting their benefits. When this happens, the retirement plan is required to notify the federal government that a former employee earned a retirement benefit with them. 

Because of that, when the time comes for that employee to apply for Social Security benefits, the government already knows they’ve earned that pension or 401(k) benefit. In order to remind them of that earned benefit and help them claim that benefit, the SSA sends the individual a Form L99 with the information that was reported to SSA about their retirement benefits. This process helps ensure that retiring Americans don’t leave behind any retirement benefits that they earned. 

What does a Form L99 mean? And what doesn’t it mean?

If you receive a Form L99, this means that you earned a retirement benefit while working for an employer in the past. A Form L99 will include the information that your retirement plan reported at the time that you left employment. This includes the name and identification number of your retirement plan. Sometimes it also includes the amount of the benefit, but this is an estimate and should not be relied on for financial planning purposes.

While the government requires retirement plans to report when someone earned their benefits, it does not require plans to report when that person is paid their benefits. It is fairly common for someone to leave an employer after earning a retirement benefit, receive a payment of that benefit via a lump sum, annuity, or rollover, and then later receive a Form L99 from the Social Security Administration related to that same benefit.

 

It is important to understand that, while receiving a Form L99 means you earned a retirement benefit, receiving a Form L99 does not mean that you are still owed a benefit.

As noted above, any dollar value contained in the Form L99 is an estimate of what you may be owed, and this amount is not guaranteed. It is best not to rely on any dollar amounts contained in the Form L99 until you have received confirmation from your retirement plan of 1) whether you are still owed the benefit and 2) the amount to which you may be entitled.

How is a Form L99 useful?

A Form L99 can be useful in two ways. First, it provides helpful information about the retirement plan from which you earned a benefit. Second, it can prove that you earned a benefit when you go to make a benefit claim.

Your Form L99 provides helpful information about your retirement plan

Your Form L99 will include the retirement plan name and identification number. For example, if your former employer had multiple retirement plans, which is common, the Form L99 will clearly state which plan you participated in. If you earned benefits from multiple retirement plans, you should receive multiple Form L99s.

The information contained in your Form L99 was reported at the time you left employment. If you left that employer a long time ago, and if there were changes to the retirement plan after you left, the information on the Form L99 could now be out of date. For example, your former employer could have gone out of business and used the plan’s funding to purchase an annuity for you of equal value to your pension benefit from a private insurance company. In another example, the original employer may have merged with another company and combined its retirement plan with the new company’s retirement plans. These are only two of many ways that the Form L99 could be out of date.

The retirement plan information from your Form L99 will still be useful because it provides a starting point for additional research. If the retirement plan was a pension plan (as opposed to a 401(k) or other types of retirement plans), the Office of the PBGC Participant and Plan Sponsor Advocate can use the plan name and identification number from your Form L99 to trace your benefit. The Office of the Advocate's website provides information on how to access the Advocate’s Pension Tracing Service.

Your Form L99 proves you earned a benefit

In addition to containing information that can help you locate your benefit, a Form L99 can also prove that you earned a benefit when you go to make a benefit claim with your retirement plan. Retirement plans can occasionally misplace or make mistakes with their records. There is a greater risk of record issues when a retirement plan has changed hands repeatedly after a series of mergers and acquisitions. Having proof that you earned a benefit can be helpful in these situations.

When an employer decides to terminate a pension plan, it is required to pay the benefits it owes by providing a lump sum payment or rollover, or by purchasing annuities on behalf of individuals owed benefits. On rare occasions, an employer may accidentally leave someone out of this process. In some cases PBGC will pay benefits to these individuals under its insurance program. A Form L99 is one of the documents that PBGC will request in this situation. For more information visit “Can my pension plan end without paying me?”

The most important things to remember about Form L99s

  1. A Form L99 proves you earned a benefit from a particular retirement plan.
  2. A Form L99 does not prove that you are currently owed that benefit since it may have been paid out in the past via a lump sum, annuity, or rollover.
  3. Any dollar value listed in the Form L99 is an estimate and shouldn’t be relied on for financial planning purposes.
  4. If you have a Form L99 and need help locating the retirement plan on the form, the PBGC Office of the Participant and Plan Sponsor Advocate may be able to help you find a point of contact – Get pension tracing help.

 

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