I’m wife No. 4. My husband’s first wife is owed 50% of his federal pension when he dies. Where does that leave me? #NewsUnitedStates

Dear MarketWatch,

My husband is retired from federal law enforcement and currently draws a comfortable pension. He only receives a small amount of Social Security, roughly $400 per month, as he entered federal law enforcement at age 21.

Going through some old paperwork, I found the divorce decree from his first wife. It states that in the event of his demise, she will get his survivor benefits (roughly 50% of his monthly pension). She never remarried. Does this leave me completely at a loss?

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Will I be able to draw nothing as his widow other than my own Social Security?

Wife No. 4

Related: I’m 20 years older than my wife, who is 53. If she claims Social Security early, will it affect her widow’s benefit? 

Dear Wife No. 4,

First, you won’t be left completely at a loss, but you do need to tie up a few loose ends before you can breathe a sigh of relief. The rules vary for spouses versus divorced spouses, and also for claiming spousal benefits versus survivor benefits.

I’ll start with Social Security, as it is a bit more straightforward. With Social Security, spouses are eligible for up to 50% of the partner’s benefit at his or her Full Retirement Age, and that applies to you and any of his ex-wives.

Spousal Social Security benefits are claimed only while the person whose record is being used is still alive. In order for you — as his wife — to get spousal benefits, you must be at least 62 years old and your husband must be claiming benefits to receive anything on his record.

You can get up to 50% of his benefit, and the amount you get will be determined by the age at which you claim benefits. If the benefit you would receive based on your own record is higher than what you would receive under spousal benefits, you will receive the higher of the two options.

Divorced spouses have a few specific rules of their own to receive spousal benefits. In this instance, the claimant must be at least 62 years old, they generally can not have remarried and their marriage must have lasted at least 10 years. If the divorce was at least two years ago, they can apply for a benefit on a spousal record even if the spouse is not yet claiming their own.

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Survivor benefits are available only after the person whose record is being used has died. Spouses and ex-spouses may be eligible if they are at least 60 years old (or 50-59 years old if they have a disability). For you specifically to claim survivor benefits, you must have been married to your husband for at least nine months before he died and you did not remarry before age 60 (or 50 if you have a disability). Your husband’s ex-wives are eligible for survivor benefits if their marriage to him lasted at least 10 years.

You may hear that there is a family maximum for Social Security benefits, but that does not apply to divorced spouses. The Social Security Administration does limit how much it pays out to dependents, which can be between 150% to 180% of the person of record’s full retirement benefit, but that formula includes children or dependent parents, the agency said.

Your husband’s federal pension is less straightforward, and depends on paperwork submitted to the pension system, said Susan Plisch, a certified financial planner and founder of Resilient Divorce Solutions. The paperwork is known as a Court Order Acceptable for Processing, or COAP, which is not the same as a divorce decree.

“It’s difficult to know just by looking at the divorce decree [to see] what details were included in the COAP,” Plisch said. “I’d recommend this fourth wife contact the pension system directly to inquire what portion of her husband’s benefit will come to her as a surviving spouse in the event he predeceases her.”

Wording is crucial here, as it will clearly state how the pension is to be broken down during his lifetime and/or after he dies. “When it comes to federal pensions, the survivor benefits (if there are any at all) depend on how the pension was structured and the writings in any divorce agreements,” said Georgia Lord, a certified financial planner and head of financial planning at Corbett Road Wealth Management.

For example, “if the divorce decree did not state the first wife was entitled to survivor benefits, then her payments would generally end upon his death,” Lord said.

The paperwork should also provide clarity as to how much she’s owed. For example, she may be eligible to half of his monthly pension check as it is, or perhaps a lower amount called the “marital portion” of his pension, which is 50% of the benefit he earned during their marriage at the time, she said.

Your husband should review his beneficiaries to make sure that they are up to date. If he never named you as the survivor-benefit election, you would not be entitled to anything when he died.

So no, you do not end up at a total loss if he were to pass, because you can still count on Social Security, if not a federal pension benefit, but now would be a good time to review all of the paperwork.

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