Designating Your Beneficiaries

One of the most important decisions to make for your retirement plan accounts is the designation of beneficiaries. In the event of your death, your beneficiaries would be able to go directly to TIAA and file a beneficiary claim. Without any designations, your accounts would instead go to your estate and be distributed as part of probate proceedings – and not necessarily as you would have wanted.

Beneficiary designations must be made for each of the three plans (Basic, Matching, and Supplemental). If, for example, you have a beneficiary designation on your Basic Plan account only, that designation won’t apply to the Matching and Supplemental Plans; those two plans would instead go to your estate. Also note that the beneficiary designations for your retirement plans and life insurance do not apply to each other. You can change your retirement plan's beneficiary(ies) at any time.

To designate or change your retirement plan's beneficiary(ies), follow these steps:

• Log in at TIAA.org
• At the top of the page, click on Accounts to open the Quick Links menu.
• Under Quick Links, click on View All Actions.
• Under Top Actions, click on Beneficiaries.
• Follow the steps.

Help Is Available

If you have questions about how to make the selections that best reflect your wishes, please contact the Penn Retirement Call Center at (877) 736-6738. You may also schedule a TIAA Retirement Plan Consultation at  TIAA.org/schedulenow or by calling 800-732-8353 Monday-Friday 8 am - 8 pm ET.