Better Check Your Pension Payment

I read a troubling article ($) in today's Wall Street Journal about how corporate mergers are causing problems with retirees' pension payments. It seems that pension administrators are finding "errors" of overpayment to retirees and then demanding the retirees pay back the overpayments.

What's a retiree to do? First off, keep excellent detailed records. Keep all letters from your pension administrators. Also, keep good records of any buy outs and mergers. That way you can track who should be paying what. Put as much money as you can into your 401(k) and Roth IRA so that if you ever have a pension problem, you have other forms of income.

Those are just a few pointers. I plan on addressing this issue further with a follow-up post. If you have any additional pointers, please post a comment.

Tags: Pension Plan, Retirement