Significance

• The Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) protects your pension from being taken from you. Your pension benefits cannot be assigned or transferred to a third party. Your pension will still come to you no matter the amount of debts you accumulate.
  
  

Benefit

• The benefit to you is that you won't lose a valuable source of income in retirement. Your creditors may threaten you with collections and may tell you they'll take your pension away from you, but this is illegal. Your pension won't be taken from you. Even if your creditors sue you, your pension is protected since it is considered to be held in trust for you.
  
  

Warning

• While your pension savings is secure, your bank account may not be. Your creditors may attempt to place a lien on your bank account. If they are successful, your bank account proceeds will be taken from you. If your pension is deposited into your bank account, then you'll risk losing your pension indirectly through a seizure of the funds in the account.
  
  

Consideration

• If you really want to protect your pension check, have a check mailed to you. Direct-deposited pension checks are still vulnerable to bank account seizure. Cashing your pension check and then using cash may be the only way to keep your retirement income. While this might seem like a major inconvenience, the alternative could be having this money seized by your creditors.