Understanding Pension Communications

As a retiree, beneficiary, or QDRO alternate payee prepares to receive pension payments, you need to gather certain information, such as verification documents for birth dates and marital status, spousal waivers, and payment elections. As you work with a payee to produce a final calculation, you need to keep records of your interactions.

Pension Administration provides two methods for tracking pension-related communications:

• Activity lists for administrative processes that require you to perform a standard set of tasks.

  For example, you might set up a retirement activity list that includes the tasks (or "activities") you must perform when a person retires. When Onslow retires, you create a checklist for him by copying the standard retirement checklist. You use Onslow's checklist to keep track of the activities required to process his retirement. As you complete each activity, you can check it off, make comments, and add the date.

  You can keep several activity lists for a single employee. For example, when Onslow dies, you can create a checklist to manage his death-related activities.

• Capture comments pages for free-form comments.

  For example, you might add a comment about a conversation you have with Edith about the amount of her pension.