To establish or update your beneficiary, please complete and submit a beneficiary nomination form. Nominate Your Beneficiaries.Generally, an ERISA plan participant can select just about anyone to be their beneficiary. Who can participate in your employer's retirement plan? Any predivorce beneficiary designation of a spouse will remain effective unless and until you update your beneficiary designations. The SPD states that to designate a beneficiary, the employee must complete, sign and date a beneficiary designation card ("the "Card"). Certain retirement plans require consent when taking distributions or changing beneficiary designations. It's worth noting that ERISAqualified plans aren't always protected. Title I of ERISA provides that "a pension plan shall provide that benefits under the plan may not be assigned or alienated".