The Christmas season has ended and now the New Year has begun. If you are retired or about to retire this is the time to make sure that you are receiving or about to receive all your pension money. You would be surprised to learn that there are over $100 million in Unclaimed Pension Benefits. These are pensions from terminated defined benefit pension plans.
“Although the vast majority of workers receive their full pension, sometimes people lost track of benefits earned with former employers,” said Vince Snowbarger, Interim Director of the PBGC. “The Pension Search directory helps workers find retirement money they are entitled to but cannot locate.”
The unclaimed benefits for over 30,000 pensioners range from as little as a few dollars to over $600,000, while the average is around $5,000.
“That’s a lot of money for someone not claiming especially in these tough economic times” says, Edward Palonek, founder of Foundmoney.com, a company specializing in helping people find unclaimed money, since 1994. What’s further amazing according to Palonek, is that “Pensioners are completely unaware that there may be some unclaimed pension money out there in their name waiting to be claimed.”
The States that have the highest number of missing pensioners and unclaimed money are New York at approx. 7,000 pensioners and $38 million unclaimed pension money, California at approx. 3,000 pensioners and $7 million, New Jersey at approx. 2,000 pensioners and $12 million, Texas at approx. 2,000 pensioners and $7 million, Pennsylvania at approx. 2,000 pensioners and $10 million, Illinois at approx. 1,500 pensioners and $9 million and finally Florida at approx. 1,500 pensioners and $7 million.
Finding these unclaimed pensioner money is as simple as clicking your computer mouse and conducting a search for your name or that of someone you know, says Palonek. The online service is free and available 24 hours a day.
The unclaimed pension money is from approx. 6,600 companies, primarily in the airline, steel, transportation, machinery, retail trade, apparel and financial services industries that closed pension plans in which some former workers could not be found.
According to Palonek, many of the pensioners are workers with pensions whose former employers closed pension plans and distributed benefits. Others are workers or retirees missing from under-funded pension plans because the plans did not have enough money to pay benefits.
To avoid becoming a missing pensioner of unclaimed pension money, workers should tell their employers when they move or change names, and they should hold on to any pension information they receive from their employers.
Make sure not to write off the unclaimed pension money as lost forever, you never know this may be the year that you find yourself richer that you think. What a great way to start of the New Year in 2010.
Contact:
Foundmoney at www.foundmoney.com / Edward Palonek at www.edwardpalonek.org
