Shortly after your plan terminated, you received a welcome package that introduced you to the PBGC.
As a retiree, your package included a form, the Payee Information Form, for you to complete and return to us. We need your completed form to confirm the information that Delphi gave us so we can keep paying your benefits.
If you have not yet sent us the completed form, we urge you to do so immediately. If you do not return your form, we will stop sending your payments until we receive it.
PBGC’s bank started making your payments on January 1, 2010. You may have noticed that the amount you are receiving, now that PBGC is making your payments, is different from the amount you were getting before. This is because PBGC takes fewer deductions from your payment than Delphi did. PBGC deducts only federal income taxes and certain court-ordered payments from your pension benefit.
In addition, as a retiree in the hourly plan, your payment may have included a pension benefit from General Motors. PBGC is paying you only the benefit due from the Delphi plan. Fidelity will continue to pay the GM portion.
As we mentioned before, PBGC calculates your benefit according to your plan’s provisions and pays benefits up to the legal limits. These limits may affect the amount that PBGC can pay you.
PBGC expects to start adjusting benefit payments in your plan between January and April 2010. We call the adjusted amount the 'estimated benefit.' Not all retirees' benefits will be adjusted.
If PBGC is adjusting your benefit, you will receive a letter from us explaining the reason for the adjustment 30 days before the adjustment date. The first set of letters was mailed on January 2, 2010.
In agreements between General Motors and its Unions, the United Auto Workers, United Steelworkers and the IUE-CWA, General Motors agreed to pay certain benefits for certain groups of Delphi hourly retirees in the event that the plan terminated.
In some cases, GM is paying a higher benefit than what you would receive from Delphi. Also, in certain cases, GM will make up the difference between the original Delphi benefit amount and the amount PBGC can pay.
For those retirees whose benefits will be adjusted by PBGC's limits, PBGC will give GM information on the benefit amount we are paying. GM will then determine the amount they will pay to top-up the benefit. GM and the PBGC have taken steps to ensure that all data is transmitted in a secure manner.
If you have questions about the GM top-up amount, please contact GM Benefits & Services Center at 1-800-489-4646.
