{"id":3243,"date":"2018-03-05T13:46:56","date_gmt":"2018-03-05T18:46:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/?p=3243"},"modified":"2019-12-24T13:07:11","modified_gmt":"2019-12-24T18:07:11","slug":"thinking-getting-re-married-might-want-roll-whats-401k","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/thinking-getting-re-married-might-want-roll-whats-401k.html","title":{"rendered":"Thinking About Getting Re-Married? You Might Want To Roll Over What\u2019s In Your 401(k)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Nearly all 401(k) plans are governed by the Employment Retirement Act of 1979 (\u201cERISA\u201d). ERISA regulates pension, health &amp; welfare, and other employee benefits including 401(k) programs.<\/p>\n<p>Under ERISA, if owner of an ERISA-governed 401(k) plan dies, their surviving spouse is automatically entitled to 401(k) benefits at the time death, regardless of who has been named beneficiary. Under \u00a7 1055 of ERISA, if the owner of a retirement account is married when he or she dies, his or her spouse is automatically entitled to receive at least fifty percent (50%) of the money, regardless of what the beneficiary designation says. The Supreme Court has explained that \u00a7 1055 reflects Congress\u2019s intent to \u201censure a stream of income to surviving spouses.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This right of the surviving spouse is triggered regardless of when the assets were accrued or how long the pair has been married. There is an exception to the general rule. Plans are permitted to include a 1-year marriage rule whereby a surviving spouse must have been married to the plan participant for at least 1 year before they may claim a right to 401(k) assets, but, not all plans have adopted this exception.<\/p>\n<div class=\"read_more_link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/thinking-getting-re-married-might-want-roll-whats-401k.html\"  title=\"Continue Reading Thinking About Getting Re-Married? You Might Want To Roll Over What\u2019s In Your 401(k)\" class=\"more-link\">Continue Reading \u203a<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nearly all 401(k) plans are governed by the Employment Retirement Act of 1979 (\u201cERISA\u201d). ERISA regulates pension, health &amp; welfare, and other employee benefits including 401(k) programs. Under ERISA, if owner of an ERISA-governed 401(k) plan dies, their surviving spouse is automatically entitled to 401(k) benefits at the time death, regardless of who has been [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[246,65,89,343],"tags":[],"coauthors":[139],"class_list":["post-3243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-divorce-family-law-insights","category-insights","category-lindabury","category-wills-trusts-estates-insights"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Thinking About Getting Re-Married? You Might Want To Roll Over What\u2019s In Your 401(k) &#8212; March 5, 2018 &#8212; Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C. Firm News &amp; Events<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Nearly all 401(k) plans are governed by the Employment Retirement Act of 1979 (\u201cERISA\u201d). ERISA regulates pension, health &amp; welfare, and other employee\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/thinking-getting-re-married-might-want-roll-whats-401k.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Thinking About Getting Re-Married? You Might Want To Roll Over What\u2019s In Your 401(k) &#8212; March 5, 2018 &#8212; Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C. Firm News &amp; Events\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Nearly all 401(k) plans are governed by the Employment Retirement Act of 1979 (\u201cERISA\u201d). ERISA regulates pension, health &amp; welfare, and other employee\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/thinking-getting-re-married-might-want-roll-whats-401k.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C. Firm News &amp; Events\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-03-05T18:46:56+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2019-12-24T18:07:11+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C.\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Thinking About Getting Re-Married? You Might Want To Roll Over What\u2019s In Your 401(k) &#8212; March 5, 2018 &#8212; Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C. Firm News &amp; Events","description":"Nearly all 401(k) plans are governed by the Employment Retirement Act of 1979 (\u201cERISA\u201d). ERISA regulates pension, health &amp; welfare, and other employee","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/thinking-getting-re-married-might-want-roll-whats-401k.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Thinking About Getting Re-Married? You Might Want To Roll Over What\u2019s In Your 401(k) &#8212; March 5, 2018 &#8212; Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C. Firm News &amp; Events","og_description":"Nearly all 401(k) plans are governed by the Employment Retirement Act of 1979 (\u201cERISA\u201d). ERISA regulates pension, health &amp; welfare, and other employee","og_url":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/thinking-getting-re-married-might-want-roll-whats-401k.html","og_site_name":"Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C. Firm News &amp; Events","article_published_time":"2018-03-05T18:46:56+00:00","article_modified_time":"2019-12-24T18:07:11+00:00","author":"Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C.","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C.","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/thinking-getting-re-married-might-want-roll-whats-401k.html","url":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/thinking-getting-re-married-might-want-roll-whats-401k.html","name":"Thinking About Getting Re-Married? You Might Want To Roll Over What\u2019s In Your 401(k) &#8212; March 5, 2018 &#8212; Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C. Firm News &amp; Events","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/#website"},"datePublished":"2018-03-05T18:46:56+00:00","dateModified":"2019-12-24T18:07:11+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/#\/schema\/person\/429b3bd6b52a7aa6eb9a0709bbb4d06f"},"description":"Nearly all 401(k) plans are governed by the Employment Retirement Act of 1979 (\u201cERISA\u201d). ERISA regulates pension, health &amp; welfare, and other employee","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/thinking-getting-re-married-might-want-roll-whats-401k.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/thinking-getting-re-married-might-want-roll-whats-401k.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/thinking-getting-re-married-might-want-roll-whats-401k.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Insights","item":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Thinking About Getting Re-Married? You Might Want To Roll Over What\u2019s In Your 401(k)"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/","name":"Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C. Firm News &amp; Events","description":"Published by Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/#\/schema\/person\/429b3bd6b52a7aa6eb9a0709bbb4d06f","name":"Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C.","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/3f2ca7450f0195db092bccff4fb8982e","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/a19d0fac94b8d3d657028926f65c841917c5f8f0dd3f23ad394e83f16c690e09?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/a19d0fac94b8d3d657028926f65c841917c5f8f0dd3f23ad394e83f16c690e09?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C."},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.lindabury.com"]}]}},"yoast":{"focuskw":"","title":"","metadesc":"","linkdex":"","metakeywords":"","meta-robots-noindex":"","meta-robots-nofollow":"","meta-robots-adv":"","canonical":"","redirect":"","opengraph-title":"","opengraph-description":"","opengraph-image":"","twitter-title":"","twitter-description":"","twitter-image":""},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3243"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3243\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3245,"href":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3243\/revisions\/3245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3243"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=3243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}