His Ex Is Getting His $1 Million Retirement Account. They Broke Up in 1989. - WSJ
Jeffrey Rolison and Margaret Sjostedt dated in the 1980s. Now, almost 40 years after they broke up, she stands to inherit his $1 million retirement account. The reason she might get the money is that in 1987, Rolison listed Sjostedt on a handwritten form as the sole beneficiary of his workplace retirement account. He never changed the beneficiary designation and died in 2015.
Standing in her way are Rolisons brothers, who learned about Sjostedts claim to the money weeks after his death on a phone call from their estate lawyer. They dont think he could have intended to leave the money to her. We were shocked, said his brother Brian, a mechanic. The brothers have since been fighting his former employer, Procter & Gamble, in federal court to wrest the retirement money out of the hands of Sjostedt, now Margaret Losinger.
The battle over Rolisons money is a stark reminder that the beneficiary forms on retirement accounts, life-insurance policies and bank accounts matter. In most cases, they trump the will even if they were filled out decades prior.
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Under federal law, employers are generally required to pay out these retirement accounts to the last recorded beneficiary, or a surviving spouse if the spouse hasnt filed a waiver. That could be a name on a 3×5 card filled out decades ago, as in Rolisons case. Or it could be a name entered online. Adding to the confusion: Some employer plans, including P&Gs, havent integrated the old paper forms into their online systems.
Rolison met Losinger, who goes by Peggy, at a park playing Frisbee, and they started dating in their early 20s, according to court documents. Later, they moved to Sullivan County, Pa., where she waitressed and he got a job on the floor at a P&G plant that makes Pampers diapers and Bounty paper towels. After a year on the job, in 1987, he signed up for the P&G profit-sharing and savings plans, and filled out a beneficiary card, listing her as cohabitor. Peggy moved out two years later, got married the next year and had two children, according to court documents.
I wanted marriage and children and he did not, Losinger testified.
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Rolison died at 59, single and childless.
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The ex-girlfriend, now 68, stands to inherit the entirety of Rolisons P&G plan accounts. The total came to nearly $750,000 when he died and had grown to $1.15 million by 2020.
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Rolisons P&G retirement savings, meanwhile, still sit in money-market funds, awaiting distribution.
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Deep State Witch
(11,004 posts)Who continued to work until well after retirement age because their ex-spouses would get half of their retirement if they retired.
PoindexterOglethorpe
(26,105 posts)Really?
Probatim
(2,862 posts)LiberalFighter
(53,036 posts)Doesn't matter what his will says. And court can't change it.
GreenWave
(8,384 posts)PoindexterOglethorpe
(26,105 posts)beneficiary designations up to date.
Sort of like you have to renew your drivers license every few years. You need to update things like wills and beneficiaries.