Private Pensions
Spousal Consent Forms Hard to Read and Lack Important Information Gao ID: HRD-90-20 December 27, 1989Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO examined the content and readability of certain government-required pension documents, focusing on whether the: (1) consent forms that spouses must sign explain survivor benefits and the consequences of not selecting them; and (2) forms present the information in a way that most people can understand.
GAO found that: (1) 68 percent of the spousal consent forms served as retirement applications that listed the various payment options, including the joint and survivor (J&S) annuity, and required the worker's signature, while only one-fourth of the forms required the spouse's signature regardless of the option selected; (2) companies did not offer formal counseling to workers in 4 of 10 plans and offered only some workers counseling in about 1 of 10 plans; (3) neither laws nor regulations stated the type of information employers were required to include in spousal consent forms; (4) only 40 percent of the consent forms reviewed included information about reductions in monthly benefits, the portion of benefit continuing to the surviving spouse, and the couples' dollar amounts; (5) more than 40 percent of the forms did not explain the consequences of rejecting the J&S annuity, or explained them only partially; and (6) many of the forms had serious language problems, lacked organization and informative headings, lacked letter formatting, and used typographical characteristics that affected document readability and use.
RecommendationsOur recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.
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