© 2026 Pension Rights Center. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial 2.5 Generic License.
The Pension Rights Center can’t emphasize enough the importance of retaining and preserving one’s pension and employer-sponsored retirement plan documents, as Liz’s case below shows.
Liz, a 68-year-old Midwesterner, worked for a shoe manufacturer for 20 years and was fully vested in the company’s pension plan. Fortunately for her, she retained plan letters stating her eligibility for lifetime monthly annuity payments of $450 starting at age 65.
Even though her company was sold before she turned 65, she didn’t think it would affect her pension because the plan continued to pay benefits to her husband, who also worked for the company.
When Liz reached age 65, she contacted the plan administrator to begin her benefits. To her surprise, she was told that there was no record of her plan membership.
Liz contacted the Trellis Pension and Retirement Rights Project Project—Mid America Region for help.
Trellis is one of six counseling projects supported by the Administration on Community Living that provide critical assistance with retirement benefit issues to people in 31 states.
The Trellis attorney assigned to Liz’s case contacted the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) to ask what they knew about Liz’s plan. The PBGC told the attorney that it didn’t have any information about Liz’s plan, but to check with the company that had acquired Liz’s former employer.
However, the company told the Trellis attorney that it never acquired the pension plan. It seemed that the case had reached a dead end until Liz found a pivotal document in her files: notes from a presentation she attended in the early 2000s. These notes included changes to her plan and its new name.
When the PBGC looked into this new information from the Trellis attorney, it found a U.S. Labor Department form 5500 under the new name, but no record that the PBGC covered the plan. It told the Trellis attorney to contact the plan’s insurance broker listed on the form 5500.
The broker confirmed to the Trellis attorney that the plan was indeed covered by insurance.
The Trellis attorney kept digging. After making a Freedom of Information Act request and inquiries regarding her client with the PBGC, she was referred to a PBGC missing participant claims division.
Thanks to Liz’s careful retention of relevant records and the Trellis attorney’s thorough investigation, the PBGC was able to confirm that Liz’s plan was, in fact, covered and that she was eligible for benefits.
Finally, after 18 months of Trellis’ perseverance, the PBGC approved Liz’s pension payments.
This publication was supported by the Administration for Community Living (ACL), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as part of a financial assistance award totaling $415,000 funded by ACL/HHS and $158,334 funded by non-government source(s). The contents are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official views of, nor an endorsement, by ACL/HHS, or the U.S. Government.
