How to find a lost pension

It is up to the individual worker to find his or her former pension plan.
 
To receive a benefit, the worker needs to contact the former employer to apply for the benefit, but this task may involve tracing back through a complicated series of corporate mergers and bankruptcies.
 
Employees can start by contacting the Social Security Administration to get a copy of their social security earnings record. This record will provide their former employer’s federal ID number, which may help in tracking down the plan.
 
The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PGBC), which insures most private sector defined benefit plans in the United States, can assist in finding pension plans that are ongoing defined benefit plans paying pension benefit insurance premiums. It also maintains a Pension Search database that will assist workers whose lost defined benefit plans have terminated with insufficient funding and have been taken over by the PBGC. While it does not provide any assistance for workers looking for a lost defined contribution plan. it suggests thirteen other sources of information for tracking down a former employer or union and a lost pension (Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation 1999):

1.    Contact former co-workers who may have useful information.

2.    If a union covered workers at the former workplace, contact the union.

3.    Contact the Chamber of Commerce in the city where the company was located.

4.    Try to contact the pension plan administrator based on information from the most recent documentation the worker has.

5.    If the information is known, contact the plan’s actuary or other service provider.

6.    If one is available, go to a business library to research information about possible mergers the company was involved in.

7.    Do a computerized search over the Internet.

8.    Contact the office of the Secretary of State in the state where the employer was located. In most states, companies are required to file an annual report with the Secretary of State’s office.

9.    Contact the company’s competitors to see if they can provide information about the company.

10. Contact a local historical society for information about the company.

11. Contact the office of the county or municipal recorder of deeds.

12. Contact a stockbroker if the company was publicly traded. Get an annual report of the company to find its current address.

13. If the company went bankrupt, try to find the identity of the trustee in bankruptcy.

All private employer pension plans (other than church plans) are required annually to file a schedule with the Department of Labor called the Schedule SSA of the Form 5500 if they have had any vested employees leave their employment with deferred benefits. On this schedule, pension plans list the vested workers who terminated employment during the preceding year as well as information on how to contact the pension plan. This schedule is sent to the Social Security Administration. When a worker files for social security benefits, the Social Security Administration notifies the worker that he or she may be eligible for pension benefits from previous employers that have filed this form. This notification deals with the problem of lost pensioners—people who may be unaware that they are eligible for a pension benefit from a former employer. At that point, however, the person must search for the plan because the information provided by the Social Security Administration is current as of the date the worker left his or her former employer.
 
There is currently no statistical data on the likelihood of success for a worker looking for a lost pension. The PBGC (1999) cautions, however, “None of the sources of information described in this section is likely to lead you directly, in one easy step, to the pension fund.”
 
The following publications from the PBGC will provide you with more information "Finding a Lost Pension".  requires PDF reader click to download