Survivor Retirement Benefits Under a QDRO

Under a qualified domestic relations order (QDRO), a divorce court can reach retirement assets in a qualified plan. If you and your spouse have been married for at least one year at the time of your divorce, the court may enter a QDRO that provides that your former spouse be treated as your surviving spouse for purposes of qualified joint and survivor annuities available under your retirement plan.

Note that this does not happen automatically. Rather, the parties to the divorce and their attorneys must negotiate this settlement. The divorce court then issues a QDRO with a benefit distribution that states the former spouse will be treated as a surviving spouse.

A qualified joint and survivor annuity is a form of benefit that must be provided under all qualified retirement plans. A qualified joint and survivor annuity is an annuity for the life of the participant with a survivor annuity payable on the death of the employee for the life of the spouse in an amount that is:

• not less than 50 percent
• not greater than 100 percent of the amount payable during the joint lives of the participant and the spouse, and is the actuarial equivalent of a single life annuity for the life of the participant

A qualified pre-retirement survivor annuity is a lifetime annuity paid to the surviving spouse of a plan participant who dies before retirement. Under this type of annuity, the amount of the payments to the surviving spouse is to be the same as, or the actuarial equivalent of, the amount of the payment that would have been made under the qualified joint and survivor annuity.