Protect Your Loved Ones, Check Your Beneficiary Designations
Planning for your future means more than just thinking about retirement. It also means protecting your loved ones. Designating beneficiaries ensures that the people you care about receive the benefits you’ve worked hard to earn, if something happens to you. It just takes a few minutes to:
- Provide financial security for your family
- Avoid delays and legal complications
- Guarantee your benefits go exactly where you want
Active (Working) Members
Designating beneficiaries is not just for retirement. Even the newest members of PSRS/PEERS need to take this action.
PSRS/PEERS offers valuable financial protection for your family if you die before retirement. Your beneficiary could receive either a lump sum payment of your contributions plus interest or monthly benefit payments.
Keep in mind that life changes like marriage, divorce, birth, or adoption of a child automatically void your pre-retirement beneficiary designation. Unless you file a new beneficiary designation, Missouri law determines your beneficiaries when you pass away.
All active members can update their beneficiary designation at any time in Web Member Services.
Benefit Recipients
If you are a service or disability retiree, you named a beneficiary or beneficiaries at retirement. Options for naming beneficiaries at service retirement depend on the benefit plan selected.
If you are a service retiree who selected the Single Life or a Term-Certain benefit plan, or if you receive disability benefits, you can update your beneficiary designation at any time in Web Member Services.
If you selected a Joint-and-Survivor benefit plan at retirement, you can change your beneficiary for monthly benefits only if you named your spouse and that spouse passes away or you divorce. If this occurs, contact our office for information and assistance.
The Joint-and-Survivor benefit plan also allows you to name a contingent beneficiary in case both you and your primary beneficiary have passed away. In this situation, the contingent beneficiary would receive any remaining contributions and interest in your membership, but no monthly benefit. You can update this beneficiary at any time in Web Member Services at https://wms.psrs-peers.org/Beneficiary.