How to Designate Plan Beneficiaries Before Retirement
If you are not retired, you can name a Plan beneficiary to receive any lump sum death benefits payable if you die before retirement. Your Plan beneficiary can be any person or persons including your estate.
To name a Plan beneficiary or to change a designation you have previously made, you must complete and sign the official form supplied by the Pension Trust and send it to your Area Administrative Office so that it is received before your death.
The easiest way to designate a Plan beneficiary is to call or write your Area Administrative Office. (Remember to provide your Social Security number.) Or, if you have Adobe® Acrobat® Reader™ on your computer, click one of the following to download a copy of the official Beneficiary Designation Form for Non-Retired Participants:
English version (Adobe® Acrobat® PDF™, 36K)
Versión en Español (Adobe® Acrobat® PDF™, 36K)
Once you download the form to your computer, you can print it, fill it in and mail it back to an Area Administrative Office. (You cannot send the form via e-mail.)
Remember, your beneficiary designation is not effective unless the appropriate signed form is received by an Area Administrative Office before your death.
Only beneficiary designations that are made on forms supplied by this Pension Trust are recognized by the Plan. Beneficiary designations made in your will or on forms used by other pension or health and welfare trusts or for other union benefits (for example, life insurance) are not accepted by this Pension Trust.
Changes in your family status, such as divorce, marriage or other family changes, do not affect any Plan beneficiary designation you previously made. You should consider naming a new Plan beneficiary if you marry or are divorced, if your spouse dies, if you have children or if your designated Plan beneficiary dies.
Preferential Beneficiary
If you do not name a Plan beneficiary or if your named beneficiary dies before you, your Plan looks at the following classes of survivors:
- Spouse
- Children
- Parents
- Brothers and sisters
- Your estate
Your Plan beneficiary is from the first of these classes with a survivor. If there is more than one survivor in that class, they share equally in any lump sum death benefit.
When you apply for retirement benefits from the Plan, you will be asked to make a new beneficiary designation to replace any designations you may have made before you retired. If you are married when you retire and want to name someone other than your spouse as your Plan beneficiary, your spouse's consent is required.
The rules for naming a Plan beneficiary are different for retirees. If you are already retired and want to change your Plan beneficiary, click here.
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