Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in Michigan

In general, pensions (not retirement accounts like IRA, 403b, etc) may go to the spouse as the beneficiary (and qualified/elected), but not to the children. A retirement account is different as it is a limited fund (not paid for life) that you may have contributed to, whereas a pension is a benefit of employment that you do not contribute to but is paid for life by the employer. The balance remaining in a retirement account may be passed on to your children and taken at varying intervals and varying amounts whereas a pension is a specific payment each month without a limited amount of time. Once a retirement account runs out of money, there are no more payments.