Current spouse is not 403b beneficiary
A 403b owner died.
According to the 403b company, the beneficiary is not his current wife [his second wife]. They have been married for about 18 years and apparently the husband never changed the beneficiary to his new wife.
The 403b company won’t tell the current wife who the beneficiary is.
The current wife thinks the children from the husband’s first marriage are the beneficiaries of the 403b plan.
Does the current wife have any recourse to make a claim on the 403b account as a spouse or is she just out of luck?
Permalink Submitted by Alan - IRA critic on Tue, 2013-10-29 02:28
She might. If this is an ERISA 403b plan, the current spouse is the automatic beneficiary unless she has signed a written waiver. It might be necessary to hire legal counsel to help ferret out possible reasons why the current spouse would not be the automatic beneficiary as required under an ERISA plan. It will also be necessary to elevate this question to senior staff of the plan administrator as rank and file employees may not understand the spousal beneficiary rules.
Permalink Submitted by Robert Wright on Tue, 2013-10-29 03:44
Thanks Alan.
Permalink Submitted by Scott Wolters on Thu, 2016-05-12 20:29
What if the current beneficiary is a living sibling of the deceased 403(b) owner. The sibling was named beneficary 40 years ago when the 403(b) owner was unmarried. She then got married and forgot to change the beneficary on the account. Any recourse for the surviving spouse? Do the ERISA spousal rules stand if a beneficairy is named prior to marriage? What if it is a non ERISA plan?Do you know of any court cases that may have dealt with this issue? Thank you.
Permalink Submitted by Alan - IRA critic on Fri, 2016-05-13 04:20
For ERISA plans, the spousal rules apply regardless of when the other beneficiary was added. That said, it might be possible that a beneficiary named 40 years ago just after the time of ERISA passage might possibly be grandfathered. For non ERISA plans, the specific plan provisions possibly affected by state law generally apply. Community property provisions may also be material if decedent lived in a CP state. It may require a benefits attorney to investigate all these variables, but the first issue is whether this is a non ERISA plan or not.