Approximately 40 years ago, a maintenence employee working for the U.S. Government retired and returned to his home in the Philippines. He was illiterate and had a habit of endorsing his payroll and pension checks with a thumbprint and a "X". He continued to receive pension checks from the government until he was 100 years old. At that time the government became suspicious and conducted an audit. They found that the thumbprints on his most recent pension payment matched his thumbprint on old payroll checks, so they concluded he must still be alive and continued to make payments. However, he soon became the oldest living government retiree, and he was selected for a second audit. At this point the auditors traveled to the Philippines for a visit. His address turned out to be a hut in an impoverished remote village. After knocking on the door to the hut, the auditors were invited in. Upon glancing around the small room, they noticed on a small shelf above the cook stove a jar of formaldehyde with a thumb in it. Needless to say, his pension benefits were terminated shortly thereafter.

This bizarre story reflects a problem that every pension and benefit payment adminstrator faces -- namely how do you know when a recipient of re-ocurring monthly benefits dies? Until recently there had been no effective method of identifying who has died. However, during the last four years COMSERV, Inc., Bowie, MD has compiled a computerized database of deceased persons dating back to 1960. This database contains over 67 million deceased persons. The system COMSERV has developed allows any pension or benefit plan sponsor to check its beneficiaries for a nominal fee.

Stephen V. O'Neill is director of pensions for Cooper Industries, Inc., Houston, TX. His primary responsibility is for the design, development, communication and administration of the more than 100 pensions plans maintained by Cooper Industries.