Summary Annual Report and SPD

[Guest BenAustin]

Getting conflicting information from sources on these topics...are these statements true?

1. An "unfunded plan", as it relates to required reporting, referes to a fully insured plan. As such, three is no requirement to distribute the full Summary Annual Report.

2. However, the Summary Plan Description is still required for compnaies with 100 or more employees. Most often, this can be found in the Certificate of Coverage, which is produced by the fully insured carrier.

Thanks for any thoughts on this...

[Guest ERISAdiagnostics]

SPD required for ERISA plans; no participant size requirement; booklets/certificates provided by ins co generally doesn't satisify technical requirements of an spd (in a court case, attorneys could argue that the booklet is substantially in compliance)

unfunded=benefits provided out of general assets of the company or a trust set up to provide benefits, e.g., 501©(9)

insured = benefits paid by ins companies

no 5500 required if less than 100 participants at the beginning of the plan and plan is unfunded, fully insured or a combination of both (assume you are talking about h&w plans)