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Contacting "lost" plan participants


Guest MKM

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We are terminating a qualified plan and have approximately 20 people with whom we have lost touch. We have used the IRS and SSA locator services but as yet have not had one person respond. Looking for other low cost ideas on how to make contact with these people.

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Since you said this plan is terminating, if the plan is a DB plan, I believe the PBGC provides a locater service for missing participants. PBGC may even provide this service for DC plans ( I know this providing this service by PBGC has been discussed in the past for DC plans) but I do not know if they are doing this yet.

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  • 2 weeks later...

A few years back, I worked with a client to locate "lost" retirees who were due retiree medical benefits. In addition to using the IRS and SSA locator services, we used a private "search" firms to track down missing beneficiaries. Of course, those firms will charge you a fee -- typically on a per-head basis.

While you obviously want to pay benefits that are due to these people, I believe the employer has no other obligation than to show they made a "good faith" effort -- e.g., using the SSA locator service, hiring an outside "search" firm. You'll want to check with your legal counsel on whether you need to take any further action on behalf of these beneficiaries.

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Thank you for your responses. In fact we have decided to use a "search" firm, and have found quite a bit of competition in this business. We are using a firm who is charging 1/2 of the price quoted by the first company we contacted.

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