Client Profile

Issue

The plan sponsor had not reconciled the pension payment data in their pension administration system with the pension payments actually being made each month by the plan’s custodian trustee. As a result, the two data sources were out of synch suggesting that there were likely some incorrect pension payments being made.

Solution

CBIZ Retirement Plan Services proceeded with a trust reconciliation comparing the pension payment data from the plan administrator with the pension payment data from the custodian trustee to ensure that the payments expected to be made match the payments that are actually being paid. The trust reconciliation identified differences that needed to be researched.

Outcome

The trust reconciliation presented by CBIZ RPS to the plan sponsor identified a group of retirees who were actually being paid a different amount than what the plan sponsor had on file. The largest differences were among those whose first pension payment included a retro payment for multiple months. The subsequent monthly pension payment amount was never adjusted to the ongoing pension amount, resulting in overpayments equal to the intended one-time retro amount continuing to be paid each month thereafter. The plan sponsor corrected pension payments resulting in $250,000 in savings of pension overpayments.