Tips For Claiming Your Pension From A Previous Job

Michael Bordonada
Published Oct 18, 2023

Many people routinely keep track of their pensions and how much they grow over the years. The rest of us, however, easily lose track of these types of benefits and sometimes forget they even exist. This can be a very unfortunate thing, especially if you worked so many years to have money added into it. This can be a common occurrence for younger adults who typically change jobs many times. It can be easy to let certain financial assets slip out of your mind while you are concentrating on other important aspects of your life that may be consuming your attention and time.

As you begin to get older and closer to your retirement age, you will start to remember past pensions you may have had and wonder about them. The value of these types of funds can grow over many years and decades. You might find that taking time to track them down will be well worth it in the end if they turn out to be a large sum of money. Finding your old pensions may be tough, but there are some steps to take in order to get the search started.

Find Previous Employers

When you are looking to find and claim a pension from old employment, the first thing you should try to do is reach out to your old employer. The company may have been a successful or established company that could still be around. Even if your old managers are gone or retired, the human resources department may be able to obtain information for you about your pension fund and how you can get in contact with the holder of it. With the help of the internet, it can be quick and easy to research the contact information you were given. A quick email to this company may get you a much needed and helpful response. If the company you worked for is no longer in business, this option to find your pension information will not work.

Find Old Co-Workers

If you are still friends with old co-workers, you could possibly get in touch with them to get some information about who to contact at your old place of employment. Social media makes it easy to stay in touch with people and perhaps you remained friends with some previous co-workers or kept in touch with some of them on a professional level. However, if you are looking to find information from many years ago, this option may not work out.

Search The Internet For Assets

The previous options for finding information about your old pension plans may not work out for everyone. In some instances, they won't provide good results and may not be the most productive way to spend your time looking for your old pensions to claim. Another great way to begin searching for your old pensions is online. Most employers and financial institutions are required to keep an updated filing of any unclaimed assets with the state treasury department. Some of those assets include unclaimed paychecks, life insurance benefits and pension accounts. When any of these types of assets have not been claimed for over a year, a company is required to contact the state's unclaimed property department to list the assets.

Each state has an unclaimed assets department and most of them have an online directory for people to search through to see if they have any unclaimed funds to obtain. In most cases, you can simply do a search using your name. However, in some cases you will be required to enter more information to search such as your tax identification number. You may also need to remember your last known address when you were working there. This means having to remember where you were living when you earned a specific asset from a company.

If you have a pension or other asset from years or even decades ago, it very well could be worth thousands of dollars at this point. This is not an amount of money you want to waste because you have to find it in order to claim it. There are various methods to try and find an unclaimed pension from your previous job. All it takes is a little effort and due diligence.

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