Abogados

The information on the form 5500 can be complicated to wade through: This fact sheet provides helpful guidance, and the Pension Rights Center website provides a wealth of other helpful information about evaluating your pension plan. However, it's worth noting that firms' form 5500s don't always include the most up-to-date information because firms have a grace period to file their updated information.

Additional Safety Net
If it turns out your pension isn't in great shape, that's not automatically cause for panic because there's an additional safety net for pension-holders. Most pension plans in the private sector are also covered by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, which provides backup protection if one of its participating firms falls into bankruptcy or otherwise cannot provide the benefits it has promised to workers. In the case of a failed pension at a PBGC-covered institution, the agency currently provides up to $4,500 a month in benefits for workers who retire at age 65. To see whether your plan is covered by PBGC, ask your employer for a summary plan description--a document that provides details about your plan, including PBGC coverage.

Unfortunately for pension-holders, PBGC isn't a failsafe backstop: There are also questions about the financial health of PBGC itself. Much like the FDIC, PBGC charges participating firms a premium to be covered, but those premiums have arguably not been high enough given the number of companies that have had to rely on PBGC to help shore up their pensions in recent years. PBGC's most recent annual report, released in May, noted that the agency could have a $34 billion shortfall by 2019. (It's widely assumed that the government would step in to rescue PBGC under such a scenario. But that's a big number, and there are no guarantees.)