Many of our members have noted that they are being asked to identify themselves to Prudential for life insurance policies they received upon retirement. Some are confused that Prudential seems not to have the beneficiaries that were apparently identified upon retirement. We checked this situation with Corporate HR and received information for you:
The letters were sent out to all active and retirees to inform them that a) they do not have a beneficiary on file or b) we have multiple records (both electronic and paper) and require the participant to go onto the Prudential beneficiary website to update their record. They can also submit the paper form that was provided along with the letter.
As you know Raytheon changed record keepers from the Raytheon Benefit Center (RBC) to Prudential for life insurance in September 2016. This is part of the clean-up process to make sure Raytheon has the most up to date and accurate beneficiaries on file. Note that the letter gave some instructions as to how to go into the Prudential system and update their respective beneficiaries. Some may have properly submitted upon their retirement but if they also had an electronic designation, Prudential needs the retiree to go into the system and provide the most up to date info.
If calling, the retiree should call Prudential and not the RBC since all life insurance record keeping has moved to Prudential. When the retiree calls Prudential to verify their beneficiary designation, Prudential will check the website first. If there’s no designee, they will then research and look into their database to confirm that they do not have a paper beneficiary designation on file. This takes a couple of business days. Prudential will then send out a letter to the retiree with the beneficiary information, assuming that there is one on file. If the beneficiary information is not up to date, the retiree can either send in the paper form that was included in the letter or go onto the retiree Desktop Benefits website and access the Prudential beneficiary website from there. You can, at any time, change the beneficiary due to death, divorce or whim.
Last note: It appears that those for whom they have correct beneficiaries (like mine) did not get the letter. Also, the letters did not go out simultaneously.