When the Social Security Administration Overpays

Here’s one troubling risk your clients could face: The Social Security Administration could send them too much cash, then ask your clients to pay the cash back almost immediately.

Rep. Mike Carey, R-Ohio, recently focused on the problem at a House subcommittee hearing.

An SSA official testified that the agency contacts about 1 million Americans about excess benefit payments every year. It gives the beneficiaries just 30 days to send the extra cash back.

Your clients may have been counting on using that cash to pay their bills.

Even if you’ve helped them use mutual funds, annuities, permanent life insurance and other arrangements to cover their expenses, a clawback letter could eat into their rainy-day funds.

Clients can file appeals, but the 30-day repayment window may intimidate them, and the clients have to somehow show that any errors were not their fault.

The SSA emphasizes that beneficiaries facing clawback demands can file appeals, ask for waivers and negotiate repayment plans.

But the idea of making disabled or elderly people do all that within 30 days does not seem fair.