Forgotten Retirement Accounts

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
All topics and securities mentioned on straighttalk from the House or for informational purposes
only, and should not be usedas investment advice. T Anton Investment House
does not offer tax or legal advice. Investments or investment strategies covered are not
a recommendation or solicitation to buy orsell. The security's past performance is not
a guarantee of future performance. Thisis straight talk from the House. That's

(00:21):
certified financial planner Tracy Anton here onthirteen ten WIBA. Of course, Tracy
comes to us from t Anton InvestmentHouse, a fee only fiduciary with offices
conveniently located right in Middleton. Ofcourse, the website t Anton Investment House
dot com. That's t A NT O N investment House dot com.
From the site you can get notrace and the team. You can also

(00:43):
schedule appointment at a time and adate that's convenient to you. Again,
the website t Anton Investment House dotcom. Mentioning that office in Middleton,
the telephone number six O eight fivezero one fifteen forty nine. That's six
eight five zero one fifteen for nineand joining us this morning as certified financial
planner Tracy Anton. Tracy how areyou doing this week? I'm doing great,
John than you. I'm doing well. Kind of It's been obviously fall

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or nearing fall in Wisconsin because weget a little bit of everything these days,
don't we weather wise? Yes,we do, Yes, we do.
I love falls. My favorite season. It is I'm sure it's yours
too, right, it is everybodyit is and it was funny. Robin
and I were talking earlier this weekon the show and commented on I remember
when I was a kiddo, Iloved summer for obvious reasons. But right
as I've gotten older, fall hasbecome much more important. And Tracy speaking

(01:32):
of things becoming much more important aswe get older, keeping an eye and
keeping a track on our financial situation, current and previous is important. So
kind of along those lines, whatare we talking about this week? Well,
Sean, have you ever changed jobsand left to four one k behind?
Maybe? Yeah, there's yes.Well it's actually really common. I

(01:55):
mean it's more common than you wouldthink. Many of us do change jobs
the way forget about the four onek and oftentimes I think the reason it
happens is there's just usually not manydollars there, so you know, perhaps
we've only worked there a month ortwo, or even a year or two,
and we think, oh, it'snot really it's not really that much
money, or all get to itlater. But in fact, the average

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time Americans spend working a job isjust around four years, which means we're
basically constantly changing employer sponsored retirement accounts, you know, and this has caused
the number of forgotten four one ksto dradramatically increase to about twenty percent higher
than it was in twenty twenty one, so that's like a significant number.

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Capitalize is a company that helps workerskind of roll over their employee sponsored retirement
accounts into new accounts, and theyestimate that the US worker has lost over
twenty nine million accounts, which endsup being an equivalent number of one point
six five trillion in assets. Sothat's obviously a very huge number. And

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it came to my attention this weekbecause we had been helping a gentleman for
the last I don't know six monthsroll over his retirement accounts and he had
like about ten of them from allthese you know, employers, and he
was just the type of person that, you know, it was knows to
the grindstone, a worker B andhe was just always busy working, and

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so you know, he'd have anold phone k and he'd be like,
yeah, I'm going to get tothem. I'm going to get to that.
And so we were down to thevery last one and I would have
to say, I'm going to givehim a lots of credit because we told
him how to do it, eventhough we were happy to do it.
And he's like, I'll take careof it, and he got them all
done. He goes, yeah,that was sure something. It was sure

(03:51):
a lot of work. And I'mlike, I bet. I mean,
ten accounts is a lot of accountsto try to, you know, contact
every current you know, pas custodianand say, hey, that's my money,
and how do I get it?Because sometimes they're easy to get.
Sometimes it's easy rollovers, and sometimesyou know it's it's an old it's a

(04:12):
distribution forum that you know as tediousand you know needs to be notarized and
so on and so forth. Solong story short, he ended up with
one account left that he called meabout and he said, you know,
I don't know how to get thismoney. He goes, they've not seen,
they've not they don't know who Iam. So that's what led us
to this topic this week. Ohthat is amazing. And yeah, you

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think you know, over your career, working thirty forty fifty years, you've
got if you've got a thirty yearold account, that may be difficult sometimes
to track down. As we talkedthis week with certified financial planner Tracy Anton
right here on thirteen ten, WIBAmentioned the website earlier, t Anton Investment
House dot com. Definitely check itout the website. It's a great opportunity

(04:55):
to learn more about trace line fifteenforty nine. So, Tracy, when
we talk then about keeping track ofold four old one case, what makes
that so vitally important to do well? Obviously you don't want to lose the
asset, right even if it's asmall amount, You don't know what that
dollar amount could be in the future, So think about it in five,
twenty, possibly thirty years from now, that small dollar amount might be quite

(05:19):
significant. So you know, Iwould say just keep track of them.
And even if you're not able tolook and see, Okay, I can't
quite get I don't have enough timeright now, I just started a new
job. Just make sure that you'rechecking in on that account at least on
a yearly. On a yearly basis, I'd also say Sean that it's very

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important to keep track of all yourretirement dollars, and it's vitally important to
ensure that you're receiving good returns orat least really the best returns that you
possibly can within your your your risktolerance, and that you're able to do
proper financial planning as well as taxplanning. So many people forget to get
the dollars invested. Even I've seenpeople sitting in like low yielding money market

(06:06):
accounts because they know they change jobsso quickly, they'd never actually got the
money invested. Fortunately, now thereare better options. Many of the plans
are coming out where it has tobe automatic that they're at least in a
balanced account, which is stocks andbonds. But still, you know you

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might have an old account that's notearning anything, so obviously you want to
make sure all the dollars are earningas much as they possibly can. And
again, I think one of themost important things to keep track of is
what is your rate of return thatyou're earning on all dollars. And sometimes,
like I said, we ignore thesefour owing k moneys because they're not

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high balances, or we have limitedinvestment choices, or we just don't know
how to choose the investment choices.So again, seeking professional help on your
following K to be sure it's investedappropriately for your risk tolerance is also extremely
important. And also I would justsay earning returns that reflect your risk is

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really important too. So sometimes people, you know, they will use these
target date funds, only to realizelater that, wait a minute, I
didn't know that I was, youknow, fifty percent stocks and fifty percent
bonds because I chose that ten yearsago, and I didn't I wanted to
be, you know, match myretirement date, but I never thought I

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would be that conservative. And notall target date funds, you know,
obviously are the same. So againI think it's really important to choose your
actual fund that is appropriate for youand the mix, and you change it
over time. But I'm not youknow, a target date fund. Yes,
best to do as a last resort, but much better to specifically choose

(07:54):
the funds for yourself along the way. It's always great to have that control
and have those options. And todaywe're talking talking about of course, those
forgotten four oh one case and reallyvaluable to you to do an investigation.
Take a look and find those oldfour oh one case. Talk about some
of the benefits to having that controland of course managing your money properly.
As we speak with Tracy, don'tforget if you are looking for a money

(08:15):
management portfolio management tracing, the teamwould love to work with you. They'd
love to get snoy'ag you just spick up the film this morning, get
a call six eight five zero onefifteen forty nine. That's six O eight
five zero one fifteen forty nine.Even easier, head on over the website
t Anton investment House dot com.That's t A N t O N investment
House dot com. From there youcan schedule applotment at a time and a

(08:35):
date that's convenient to you. So, Tracy, what's being done to kind
of counteract at counteract that sudden risein lost accounts? Well, thanks to
the Secure Act two point zero,it should be a lot easy to track
down money. The Act will expandworkers access to retirement plans and older Americans
ability to contribute and maintain those accounts. And one way it will do this

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will be automatically rolling employees in fourO one K four threebees unless they opt
out. We had talked about thatat a previous program, and apparently there
is some more requirements as far asannual paper statements to workers and rolled and
retirement plans. So there's some thingshappening there. But another way that the
Secure Act will help track down moneyis by implementing a national Lost and Found

(09:24):
database for retirement accounts. So thisis news to me. I've never heard
of this, so obviously it's noteven in place, it's in twenty twenty
four, but still it's pretty exciting. This will help ensure people won't lose
track of money in plans tied topast employers. This online tool will take
an effect again twenty twenty four andwill help people find contact information for their

(09:46):
retirement plan administrators of past retirement accounts. So employers must share information on former
employees with the Department of Labor tokeep the database current. So pros and
cons right, there's a little ovacy, but you'll be able to access old
plans, which is really important.And again, the Act also includes portability

(10:07):
measures so that accounts follow workers whenthey leave a company. So starting in
twenty twenty four. This is reallynew new as well. Employers that are
left with these benefits, retirement accountsand they can, you know, they
can't find who the owner is,say they moved or their emails different and
all that, and they just can'tfind them. They can automatically transfer them

(10:31):
to the ex employee's new job,So if they know where they went as
a new job, they can actuallydo the transfer. And typically it would
always be the employee would be theone that would would be able to transfer
the money out. The employer isnot responsible and doesn't have the ability to
do that. So again this informationcomes from Brandon Ashton, who's the director

(10:54):
of retirement Security at Corner Store andFinancial Services in self Field, Michigan.
So again that's news to me thatthe employer can actually transferred out automatically if
they know where the ex employee's newjob is at. And as you mentioned,
that's all starting coming up this nextyear and in the meantime, and
that of course means going forward aswe look backward as well, again you

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definitely want to make sure you're checkingout and looking out to see what may
left be left out there. We'reactually gonna continue our conversation with Tracy talk
about some of the ways folks arelosing track of their accounts. Look at
the details from Tracy on that.Next in the meantime, something you want
to keep track of, it's thewebsite t Anton investment House dot com.
That's t A N t O Ninvestment House dot com. From there,
you can make an appointment right online, or you can pick up phone.

(11:37):
GIF Tracy and the team a callsix eight five zero one fifteen forty nine.
That's six O eight five zero onefifteen forty nine. More straight talk
from the houses next right here,thirteen ten w IBA. This is straight
talk from the House with certified financialPlane or Tracy Anton, right here on
thirteen ten WIBA. Talking this weekwith Tracy about some new parts of the

(12:00):
kear Act two point zero ones thatspecifically address four oh one ks and of
course some transferring four old one ksin the future. An important thing those
we've been talking with Trace this morningis looking back and keep track of those
old four oh one ks. AndTracy, what are some of the ways,
in more common ways that folks arelosing their accounts? Well, about
six hundred thousand businesses closed each year, due to mergers or going out of

(12:22):
business or rebranding, which is abouteight point five percent of US businesses.
That's a significant number, so tryingto reach retirement plan coordinators becomes a lot
harder when their contact information is nolonger in service. Within the last two
years, those numbers actually have growndue to the great resignation during the pandemic.

(12:45):
So you know, people are alsochanging jobs frequently. According to the
data from the US Bureau of Statistics, the average American born between nineteen fifty
seven and nineteen sixty four will changejobs a dozen times in their career.
That which surprises me again because Ithink, well, it's usually the younger
person. Well not really, nineteenfifty seven to sixty four twelve times in

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their life. So our record fortyseven point four million US workers quit their
jobs in twenty twenty one due toearly retirement or better job prospects. Interesting,
Tracy, So keeping track of thosejobs that's pretty important as well as
in a short timeline, isn't it. Yeah, So making sure to track
down accounts within a year of leavingyour job is really critical I think to

(13:33):
have success recovering those assets. Sodata from this Capitalized group shows that the
average amount lost and accounts is estimatedto be fifty five thousand dollars and over
a lifetime, they estimate failure toreclaim these assets could cost an individual as
much as seven hundred thousand in retirementsavings, which is again, these are

(13:54):
all estimates by the Department of Labor. But can you imagine that forget an
account of fifty five thousand, thenlater it's worth seven hundred. I mean,
I'm not sure what rate of returnthey're using and how long, but
still like these could be big numbers. These could be substantial. As we
talked with certified financial planner Tracy Antonright here on thirteen ten Wi VA,

(14:15):
Tracy would love to help you.Love to get to know you, which
makes it real easy to do.If you're looking for money management, portfolio
management, all your new has hadon over the website t Anton investment House
dot com. That's t A NT O N Investment House dot com.
Telephone number six eight five zero one, fifteen forty nine. That's six eight
five zero one, fifteen forty nine. So Tracy, why does money get

(14:35):
lost? Well, perhaps you've movedor you've changed your email and your former
employer is having a hard time findingyou or your old four one K plan
has changed sponsors. That's really common. I had one client again that I
mentioned, you know, had losthis account and when he called the where

(14:56):
he had worked previously, they senthim to the current and sponsor. Well,
the current sponsor had taken over intwo thousand and four, and the
sponsor said, well, my recordsonly go back to two thousand and four,
but the previous place was this place. So you know, he called
that place and they were like,we don't have any record of you like

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it. All the assets would havetransferred to the new custodian, which makes
sense to me. So now hehas to go back again to the current
custodian and say, okay, lookme up again. This is the information
I have. And his information actuallycame from some random document that was by

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Social Security, so you don't evenknow if that was valid, so we
have to figure that out. Wow, And that again goes to the importance
of expediting as quickly as possible asyou're changing jobs, making sure that you're
rolling that stuff over right away.And Tracy, what is kind of that
best way as far as best practiceas best plan to prevent losing a retirement
account, well, I think takestock of all your accounts, make a

(16:00):
list or a spreadsheet of all yourprevious employers and the plans that you actually
contributed to, and be sure thatyour contact information is up to date with
them and vice versa. Obviously,you know, making sure that you understand
and they understand that all this informationhow best to contact you. But the

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second thing is, you know,keeping up to date on company status.
So obviously closures, mergers or followingK plan changes can make an older account
very hard to track down. Andthere was a financial advisor here in Messin
actually that was quoted in this thing. Marcus Zad is his name, and
he says, if you can't getin touch with past employers or plan and

(16:42):
ministrators, do a search on theDuels E fast filing, which has plan
information back to two thousand and ten. Now that doesn't help some you know,
my client, for example, butstill it could help a lot of
people by doing this search on theDepartment of Labor's e fast fine it has
information back to twenty ten. Andalthough it is rare, if accounts are

(17:06):
left unclaimed for a period of time, they could become you know, control
of the state, and you wouldfind them under unclaimed property. And there's
a couple of websites to check outfor that. It's unclaimed dot org or
missing money dot com. And bothof these websites have links to state treasurers
who regularly update the list of unclaimedproperty. So my assistant she was doing

(17:32):
this. You know, she gavethis information to the client and then she
looked it up for herself and lookedit up. I don't know if she
told her brother to look it upor you know, his name or whatever
happened, but she said, sureenough, she found some unclaimed property.
I think it was, you know, ten bucks, but still under for
her brother. And I was like, you know, you don't know what's
out there. So I would suggesteverybody do this. Go to unclaimed dot

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org or missingmoney dot com and see, you know, put in your name
if you have to put in socialor whatever you have to put in,
and see what pops up. Thatis fascinating. I know I've done it
here in Wisconsin, and you justput in your name. You can actually
look up anybody since it's public record. And I'll tell you something, Tracy,
Okay, pretty amazed at what's outthere, and I learned I had

(18:17):
a savings account from when I wasa kiddo at the Stained Bank in my
hometown. I had thirteen bucks inthere. So I got a nice somebody's
going through the ruf. You hadinvested that in stocks. Oh my goodness,
Tracy, Where where were you backin the early eighties? I know
I was in high school. Yes, a certified financial planner Tracy at time

(18:40):
here at thirteen ten w IBA aswe're talking to about ways to prevent losing
that retirement account. Importance of expedienceright rolling it over right away. That's
a really important thing, isn't it, Tracy, Yeah, it is in
my opinion. You know, onceyou know you're leaving a job or have
located an old plan, it's justbest to roll it over either to your
current for a k or an IRA, or if you want to, you

(19:02):
know, pay the taxes and putit in a rath or it's wrath money,
put it in a roth ira.I would just say, you know,
making sure to send accounts directly toyour financial institution, so make sure
it's payable to the new custodian orthe custodian of your IRA. Versus making
the check payable to yourself. Andso that way you're without the I R

(19:26):
S. You know, they won'thave to withhold. They won't think you're
taking out money, and withhold I'llpenalize you and all of that ten percent,
So they'll issue your current custodian willissue at ten ninety nine that shows
the dollars rolled over instead of youhaving to prove that you rolled it over.
So obviously, I do think rollingit over iras make a lot of

(19:48):
sense for a lot of people becausethey typically have more choices. You know
that that is important as we talkregularly. I know one of the great
things for folks who want to listenback to some of the previous pod cast
in previous shows, one of thebig things is having options, having choices,
having that control. That's one ofthe great things about working with Tracy
has taken control putting that map together. And of course Tracy would love to

(20:10):
get to know you. If you'relooking for money management or portfolio management,
Trace would love to get to knowyou, get to help, get to
work with you and help you.I'll get his head on over to t
Anton Investment House dot com. Fromthere you can set up an appointment work
pick up phone called the office rightin Middleton six eight five zero one fifteen
forty nine. That's six O eightfive zero one fifteen forty nine. Couple
of words you've probably heard us mentionedbefore on the program asset allocation. We'll

(20:30):
talk about that specifically when it comesto rolling over your old four oh one
Cable'll get the details from Tracy nextas Straight Talk from the House continues right
here on thirteen ten WIBA. Thisis straight Talk from the House with certified
financial planner Tracy Anton right here onthirteen ten WIBA. The website t Anton

(20:51):
investment House dot com. That's tA N t O N Investment House dot
com. And the telephone oper forthe office right in Middleton six so eight
five zero one fifteen forty nine.That's six h eight five zero one,
fifteen forty nine. Talking about orphanedfour oh one ks some of those previous
jobs out there. Of course,a lot of us have had job changes
over our careers, sometimes multiple jobchanges, and you end up getting sometimes

(21:14):
about those four old one ks.Tracy, what about so let's say you
have those roll over old four ohone case, what do we need to
know when it comes to acid allocationfor them. So your old four oh
one K sean may not truly representyour current investment strategy or your risk tolerance.
Also, depending on what investment choicesthat you had in the old plan,

(21:36):
you might have left out certain categoriesof investing or sectors just simply because
they weren't available to you. I'veseen plans where, you know, they
didn't have emerging markets, or theydidn't have high yield bonds or anything specific.
And so I've even seen plans thatwere really they didn't have any choices

(21:56):
on value stocks, which surprised me. Right, So oftentimes if you roll
them over into an I RAY,you have more choices, which allows you
to better tailor all your retirement fundsto match your current investment objectives. The
other thing is is these plans mightbe old. You know, you might
have a plan that's twenty years old, and you go, ok, oh

(22:18):
my gosh, that's where I wasat that point in my life. But
now I'm here and this is howI want to invest. What about some
other you know? Is obviously fouror one k's are the biggest for a
lot of us, those are goingto be kind of that those big centers.
But are there other funds out therethat folks may forget about and they
may want to look to recover.Yeah, there are many types of funds
that can be lost or forgotten,including insurance accounts, unpaid wages, pensions

(22:45):
from former employers, FHA refunds,tax refunds, savings funds, and these
are funds that are more so forgottenthan loss, so they can still have
a large impact though on new financiallyif you don't cover them obviously, so
the National Association of Unclaimed Property Administratorsreports that one and ten Americans have unclaimed

(23:07):
property and more than three billion dollarsis returned to each of their owners or
to its owners each year, soyou know they basically three billion dollars gets
reclaimed each year, which is tome a large number. So airs also
can easily overlook one or more accountswhen a loved one dies if the estate

(23:27):
plan fails to list them all.So this again is another way that funds
are easily forgotten and can endure along process to recover them. And the
other thing to note Sean here isthat brokerage firms are required to make a
diligent effort and so are other financialinstitutions, banks and so forth to find

(23:48):
the owners of unclaimed property, andif they are not successful, then they
report it to the state and theagency then claims the account through a process
known as achievement so that the ownerscan find it. So again, check
out the websites unclaimed dot org ormissingmoney dot com. And you and I
were talking in the break. Ithink I checked this out probably ten fifteen

(24:11):
years ago for myself, I thinkit. And I also checked out for
my brother and I was like,hey, I found this, you know,
And at that time he's like,you know what, I don't think
it's worth going through the process.So you might find something very small too
and go don't. I'm gonna letit go. But it would be you
know, fun to look and seedo you have any unclaimed property out there?
That is an important thing to do. And if you've got questions and

(24:33):
maybe you found some good unclaimed property, are going, oh, I want
to take care of that. Youwant to do that right away. And
when it comes to helping you withthose four oh one kays and those other
accounts tracing, the team at tAnton Investment House love to get to know
you, love to talk with you. You're looking for money management to portfolio
management. All you do this outon over the website t Anton investment House
dot com. That's t A Nt o n investment House dot com.

(24:53):
Right there. You can make anappointment at a time in a date that's
convenient to you, or pick upphone give a call six O eight five
zero one f teen forty nine.That's six eight five zero one fifteen forty
nine, Tracy. It's always greatchatting with you. You enjoy this beautiful
day. Thanks John. You twotake care