Do you have old retirement plans or 401ks that you've lost track of, but you're not sure where you can find and gain access to those accounts? On this week's episode, I'm going to cover four ways you can locate those old retirement plans and discuss how to put them to their best use.

You will want to hear this episode if you are interested in...

• The three places your old retirement account money could be [1:49]
• Using your social security number [3:35]
• Searching unclaimed property databases [5:51]
• An exciting solution from the industry's leading retirement plan providers [6:57]
• What to do with your money when you find it [8:32]

Where is your money?

It's been estimated that there are billions of dollars sitting in old retirement plans that people have forgotten about. If you have an old 401k or retirement plan that you’ve lost track of, there are three places where that money could be right now. If your employer is still in business, it's easy to track them down and find out where your old 401k has gone. However, the size of the balance left in your retirement account will most likely determine where the money is.

If you have less than a $1,000 balance, your 401k provider can cash in that account and send a check to you. If this is the case, you want to follow up because the original check is likely invalid, and there could be tax consequences for not rolling the money over within 60 days of the original check being issued. If you had a balance between $1000 and $5,000, the old retirement plan provider can't send you a check, but they can move that account to another IRA. Finally, having a balance over $5000 is the easiest option because chances are it's still with the employer-sponsored retirement plan. It's simply a case of you gaining access to that account.

Finding old retirement accounts

What do you do if you don’t know who your old 401k provider is anymore? Maybe it’s been a few years. Maybe your former company has merged a few times, or they went out of business altogether. It still might be a good idea to contact your old 401k provider to see if they still have an account open for you. If you're unable to locate your 401k through your administrator, your next step is to try and look it up with your social security number through various unclaimed retirement benefit registries. And if all else fails, there are several multi-state unclaimed property databases that could be helpful.

Hopefully, one of the three options above yields results, but it can be a lot of work. Recently, a trio of the industry's largest 401k administrators (Fidelity Investments, Vanguard, and Alight Solutions) have teamed up to try to alleviate some of the stress and tax problems that go along with old 401k balances. They've put together a clearing house of sorts where anytime you leave a job with an old 401k balance, after a certain period of time these companies will talk to each other and automatically try to transfer that money over to a new qualified window quickly. If it's less than $1,000, but they don't know where to send it, or it comes back because it was in cash, they would take care of that. And if you have another retirement account with them, they'll try to automatically move that money over to that plan for you.

Resources Mentioned

• 'Billions of dollars get left behind': The 401(k) industry now has a 'lost and found' for your old retirement accounts
• National Registry of Unclaimed Retirement Benefits
• Contacting PBGC About Unclaimed Pensions
• FreeERISA
• MissingMoney.com
• Find your old 401ks
• 4 Things To Know Before Doing A 401k Rollover, #40

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