Dear Kiwi and Mango,
I am about to retire from federal employment. Before I worked for the government, I used to work at a company where I’m almost certain I had a 401(k) that they matched. I am doing my retirement planning and estate planning, which got me to thinking about these things. How do I look for an old former company 401(k) plan that I think I contributed money to many years ago but forgot about until recently?
Thanks for your help!
Ward Itgo
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Dear Ward,
If you believe you may have lost track of an old 401(k) retirement account, you aren’t alone. As you change jobs, you may leave your sponsored 401(k) plans behind, believing you’ll deal with it later. Sometimes you forget they even exist. When you are doing retirement planning and Estate Planning with an experienced Estate Planning law firm and retirement planning law firm such as the Farr Law Firm, it’s a perfect time to recall and find old accounts such as these.
According to a recent study, Americans have left behind around $1.35 trillion in retirement accounts connected to previous employers. There’s also over $100 billion in unclaimed property. Of course, you don’t want to be one of these people. These are some free resources to help you look for an old 401(k) and some suggestions to help with your search:
- Call Human Resources at Your Old Employer: Contact your former employer, and ask them to check their plan records to see if you ever participated in their 401(k) plan. Ask for the contact information for the investment company that administers the plan. You’ll likely need to provide them with your Social Security number and the dates you worked for them. If you need help tracking down your former employer because they may have moved, changed owners, or merged with another firm, help is available from the Labor Department (AskEBSA.dol.gov, 866-444-3272) and the Pension Rights Center and Pension Action Center (PensionRights.org/find-help).
- If there was more than $5,000 in your 401(k) account when you left, there’s a good chance that your money is still in your workplace account. By following the appropriate instructions, you should be able to move your retirement money where you want, which typically means rolling it over from the 401(k) into an IRA.
- If your old 401(k) account was under $5,000, your former employer has the option of transferring the money to a default individual retirement account without your consent. Your cash may have gone into an interest-bearing, federally insured bank account or to your state’s unclaimed property fund. If this is the case, and your old employer cannot tell you where your 401(k) funds are, you’ll need to track them down yourself.
- Search Online: While there’s no federally run national database where you can look for retirement accounts, a good place to start your search is with the Department of Labor’s abandoned plan database. FreeErisa also maintains a rundown of employee benefit plan paperwork.
- There’s also the National Registry of Unclaimed Retirement Benefits. Companies register with the site to help facilitate a reunion between ex-employees and their retirement money. Unfortunately, not every company is on this site.
- To see if your 401(k) money is among the state’s unclaimed property fund, use the National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators website to search. Or you can do a multi-state search in 39 states at MissingMoney.com.
- If you think you had a traditional pension plan that was disbanded, call the U.S. Pension Guaranty Corp. at 800-326-5678, or use the plan search tool here.
Hope this is helpful! To learn more about Retirement Planning Attorneys and IRAs, please read more on our website.
Kiwi and Mango
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