
Quoting
pg1067
I wasn't looking for a name, but rather a general description of whom you were talking about. When one uses a pronoun without a clear antecedent, it results in ambiguity. When engaging in legal analysis, ambiguity is a bad thing. For example, instead of writing, "My mother had a pension, unbeknownst to us, that they contacted her about," you might have written, "My mother had a pension that we didn't know about, and the pension administrator contacted her to discuss XYZ" (or something like that). I'm going to assume that "they" refers to the pension administrator, but as noted, it's not clear from what you wrote.
In any event, whether her initiation of the payout makes it so that the money goes to her estate rather than to you as designated beneficiary depends on the terms of the pension's governing documents. You can google for "Spokane lawyers who handle pension matters." If you can get the pension company to pay you as a beneficiary, it will be better than if it pays the money to the estate because a payment to the estate would be subject to claims of creditors.