Pension Funds Business Guide
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We documented 9 challenges in Pension Funds. Now get the actionable solutions — vendor recommendations, process fixes, and cost-saving strategies that actually work.
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All 9 Documented Cases
Costly Overpayments and Corrective Work from Poor Death and Survivor Data Quality
$127,000,000 in overpayments tied to approximately 3,500 deceased participants under PBGC’s Special Financial Assistance program in one case, plus unquantified legal and administrative costs to investigate and correct such errors across affected plans.[2][4]Incorrect or outdated death status and beneficiary records lead to benefit overpayments to deceased participants and, separately, to widows and survivors being wrongly denied or delayed benefits. Funds then incur rework costs to investigate, correct records, and process retroactive survivor payments, and may also face legal or fiduciary breach claims.
Continuing Pension Payments After Death Due to Late Death Notification
$127,000,000 one-time overpayment identified in PBGC Special Financial Assistance to a single multiemployer fund; recurring exposure across multiemployer defined benefit plansPension funds routinely continue paying benefits for months or years after a participant dies because the fund is not promptly informed of the death, and survivor processing controls are weak. These overpayments are often only discovered in audits or when regulators review death data, and recovery is difficult and sometimes prohibited or limited, so a portion of the money is never recouped.
Regulatory Scrutiny and Potential Penalties for Untimely Survivor and Death Benefit Administration
Financial impact appears as legal expenses and possible penalties; specific dollar amounts are not published, but multiemployer plan commentary warns of regulatory scrutiny and possible penalties for failure to properly administer survivor and death benefits.[2]When pension plans fail to promptly identify deceased participants and pay survivor annuities or death benefits on time, they can trigger regulatory investigations and potential penalties for improper plan administration. Legal and audit commentary notes that issues with deceased participants commonly surface during regulatory audits, exposing fiduciaries to scrutiny over late or missed survivor payments.
Survivors Facing Long Delays, Confusion, and Repeated Requests for Information
Financial impact shows up as higher call center and case‑handling costs due to repeated inquiries, plus reputational damage; in individual cases survivors required legal advocacy to overturn denials, implying additional legal and administrative costs for the fund, although no aggregate dollar figure is published.[1][4]Survivor benefit processing often causes significant friction for widows and other beneficiaries, who face unclear requirements, language barriers, and long delays while pension funds repeatedly request documents and provide little feedback. An internal audit found that in 98% of reviewed tickets, no feedback was provided to clients, prompting multiple follow‑up requests; advocacy case studies show survivors needing external legal help just to secure benefits they were entitled to.