Fixed Income

Protecting Your Right to Benefits

If you contact the SSA and tell them you intend to file for Social Security benefit, it might establish a record for a potential start date.
Protecting Your Right to Benefits
Any protective date that is established is usually good for only six months.J.J. Gouin/Shutterstock
Tom Margenau
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This column will discuss a special procedure that the Social Security Administration routinely uses to help individuals protect their rights to potential benefits. It’s called a “protective filing date.” In a nutshell, if you contact the SSA and tell them you intend to file for some kind of Social Security benefit and give them your name and Social Security number, it establishes a record that could be used as a starting date for any Social Security application you might file later on. Although that protective date is usually good for only six months.

The best way to explain this procedure in more detail is by answering some questions I got from readers about this issue.

Tom Margenau
Tom Margenau
Author
Tom Margenau worked for 32 years in a variety of positions for the Social Security Administration before retiring in 2005. He has served as the director of SSA’s public information office, the chief editor of more than 100 SSA publications, a deputy press officer and spokesman, and a speechwriter for the commissioner of Social Security. For 12 years, he also wrote Social Security columns for local newspapers, and recently published the book “Social Security: Simple and Smart.” If you have a Social Security question, contact him at [email protected]