Changing Your Pension Beneficiary May Change Your Monthly Pension Benefit
By Natalie Derrickson - December 28, 2023
The flexibility to change beneficiaries is a great feature of your plan but be aware that changing yours may impact your monthly budget.
Sometimes, life may force you to change the survivor beneficiary on your INPRS pension. Other times, you just may want to change your survivor beneficiary to another individual.
No matter the reason, changing your survivor beneficiary is an important decision that you should not take lightly.
Any change to your survivor beneficiary will initiate a process at INPRS, where our team will re-evaluate your guaranteed monthly pension payment as it relates to your new beneficiary. This detail is important to understand because, often, a change in survivor beneficiary reduces your monthly pension amount. Typically, this reduction in benefit is driven by the age of your new beneficiary. If you replace an older beneficiary with a younger beneficiary, the likelihood that INPRS will need to pay your new beneficiary for a longer period increases, based on actuarial calculations.
After you have retired, changing your beneficiary on your online account will not affect your pension beneficiary. You must make the change to your pension beneficiary through INPRS using this form. If you do change your beneficiary online and you are already retired, that change will only apply to your active defined contribution balance.
Each situation is unique, and you can get an estimate before you make an income-altering decision. To request an estimate, please call us at (844) GO-INPRS or click here to complete the estimate request form. If you’re ready to make this change, visit our website, select “forms” from the dropdown menu, and select your fund.