PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - Time to Tidy-Up Plan Documents
Owners and employees of smaller organizations often find themselves stretched in many directions. With all of the demands on one’s time associated with operating a business, it is not uncommon to see attention to the...more
As they once said in This is Spinal Tap, there is a fine line between stupid and clever. I can assure you that Michael McKeon who played David St. Hubbins in the movie and co-wrote it, was not in plan administration. Based on...more
Last week, we kicked off our blog series on the fundamentals of benefit claim administration with an explanation of how important it is to know and read your plan document. The plan document is the legally binding contract...more
Our ERISA Practice Center blog posts often discuss many complex, and sometimes esoteric, substantive and procedural ERISA issues, as well as related agency guidance and case law. In this new ten-part blog series, however, we...more
Synopsis: A recent decision of the federal district court for the Southern District of New York warns ERISA fiduciaries that even innocent mistakes that do not misuse plan assets or unjustly enrich the fiduciaries can cause...more
The summary plan description (“SPD”) and disclosure regulations provided by the Department of Labor (“DOL”) are spread across six regulatory sections. They are voluminous....more
Employers may soon find themselves reviewing and revising health plan master documents and summary plan descriptions (SPDs) and administrative service agreements with respect to an obscure claims administration practice known...more
The Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) requires that plan sponsors develop and maintain a comprehensive plan document as well as a concise, understandable summary plan description (SPD) to communicate to...more
• Administrators of employee benefit plans governed by ERISA should make sure now that the claims procedures contained in their affected benefit plans comply with new regulations applicable to disability benefits. • The...more
The year 1974 was a watershed for employee benefits. For the first time, the federal government undertook the complicated task of providing a statutory and regulatory framework for employee benefit plans and employee pension...more
Mull v. Motion Picture Ind. Health Plan educates employers on the basics of the requirements of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) governing plan documents and summary plan descriptions. The lessons are...more
Plan sponsors are typically forced to wait for last minute guidance to satisfy year-end compliance obligations. As a result, those of us who work with these plans spend the last days of the year frantically ensuring plans are...more
ERISA does not have a statute of limitations for lawsuits brought by participants to check claim benefits under the plan. Instead, courts borrow from similar state statutes of limitations. In a decision two years ago, the US...more
In a decision issued a couple of years ago, the United States Supreme Court held that a summary plan description that differed from the plan document could not be enforced as the plan document. The Court said that the summary...more
A federal court dismissed the plaintiffs’ claim to recover civil penalties for failure to provide plan documents requested by the plaintiffs. Boyd v. Sysco Corporation, No. 4:13-cv-00599 (D. S. C. September 3, 2015), provides...more
The Third Circuit recently held that ERISA administrative appeal denial letters must include plan-imposed time limits for commencing a lawsuit challenging the claim denial, and the failure to provide such notice warranted...more
The Sixth Circuit rejected a participant’s argument that the plan’s subrogation provision was not enforceable because it was only in the plan’s summary plan description, and not in the trust agreement that the participant...more
In passing the Employee Retirement Security Act of 1974 (“ERISA”), Congress sought to make it as easy and economical as possible for employers to provide benefits to their workers; for example, pensions, health insurance,...more
One of the major things that plan sponsors forget about their retire- ment plans is the plan document. ERISA (the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 for those scoring at home) requires all retirement plans to...more