I am confused on this subject of the spousal waiver for a company retirement plan. It is federal law that the spouse must be the primary beneficiary on a qualified retirement plan. If a participant gets divorced and I assume the divorce court settles the retirement benefits and divides them up. If the participant then gets remarried but forgets to change his beneficiary form, and then he dies. Would the ex spouse get paid the plan benefits b/c he never changed the beneficiary form or would the new spouse due to the fact that it is federal law that the spouse has to provide a waiver.

thanks to anyone that can give a shot at this.