We are an address location firm. We find people who are due benefits, usually in the pension and retirement arena. If you received a letter, a former employer of yours or a union you were affiliated with has contracted with us to locate you and confirm your address. Companies are required by law to have current addresses on all plan participants in order to send necessary information.

There are many reasons for locating plan participants. We try to communicate the specific reason in the box on the letter. Sometimes employers simply want to update addresses in their files. Other times, a plan may be terminated and they need to mail you the distribution paperwork. Bottom line: if you are owed benefits now or in the future, your former employer needs to be in communication with you.

Please send in the bottom portion of the letter in the postage-paid envelope provided with any corrections made and the appropriate box marked. PBI will confirm your address and provide the results securely to your former employer or pension plan. Your former employer/union will then follow up with you directly.

There are a few reasons your employer may have sent us your name. First, benefit departments usually reside at the corporate headquarters and branch offices or local unions don’t always communicate your current address information with the main office. Second, companies need to confirm the address they have is correct. They have an address in their system, but do not know if the address is still current. Third, your former employer has tried to mail you something, and it was returned by the Post Office. Additionally, your former employer may have your current address, but the third party administrator handling the benefits does not. Some employers have several plans (DC, DB, ESOP).

Our purpose is to put your former employer in contact with you to communicate specifics about any kind of benefits owed. PBI does not have access to specific dollar amounts as that information is confidential between you and the company.

On average, it usually takes around 90 days for our clients to contact you with information about any kind of benefits owed. Depending on the size of the project and the number of participants they are looking for, this time period may be longer.

PBI often works with the benefits department usually located at corporate headquarters. Satellite offices may not be informed of the search being performed. We also regularly work with third-party benefit administrators, which are companies hired to manage all benefits duties. If you have any doubts, contact PBI and we will let you know which office requested the search.

Companies are regularly bought by other companies or merged with other companies. If you do not recognize the company on the letter and cannot think of any former employer that has been bought or merged, feel free to contact us and we will try to obtain that information for you.

Some companies have not done a mailing to their plan participants in many years and may have chosen to update all their mailing addresses to ensure that names and addresses are correct. Even though they may have your address on file, some choose to update all the addresses that they have.

Not at this point. We are responsible for all phone and mail contacts for updating participants address information while the search is in progress. After the search is complete, you should hear directly from the company by mail. If you haven’t received anything in three months time, you can call us and we will put you in direct contact with the company and the person requesting the search.