It is not uncommon for someone to have no immediate person to be the beneficiary of your TSP. You may be divorced, widowed, or perhaps never married. Almost everyone has someone, a brother, a sister, parents, uncle, aunt? Let’s suppose no known living relative, then a friend. I have seen federal employee, sometimes, as family-less. friendless, without anyone to leave your life savings / TSP. Look to your church or charity, college, university? I have met people in this category.
What happened now? For money in the bank, IRA or investments as time passes and the institution becomes, perhaps after a year or two, that you may have dies, a quick attempt to locate you and determine if you are alive or dead. Anyone who knows from records or obituary are contacted. If no one, no one can be found, property is usually considered unclaimed after three years, when it is turned over to the state of Washington. Banks, retailers, credit unions, utilities, corporations, insurance companies, and governmental entities are some of the many sources of unclaimed property. The money is sent to the state as Unclaimed Property.
This is not the case with TSP. Using the same scenario above, except the funds are TSP, in the event no record, spouse or any known person is in record, the funds will be confiscated and used to off-set the TSP Funds.
If and when a true heir showed up, there are means to recover the TSP funds, but now, TSP must be convinced that other brothers and sisters may or may not exist. It may take years to determine who and how many have rights to these funds.
Lesson: Keep your TSP and Personnel Records up to date as to your intentions.
