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Warning. Technical terms in use.

RatherBeGolfing, right now I'd rather be golfing too and I don't even play! Seriously, we are a tiny, tiny shop. We don't have the luxury of sending something down the hall to the correct "department". Like it or not, ready or not, 100% up to speed or not, we have handle everything our clients throw at us. Occasionally, the scornful, snide responses we get on this forum make us feel like the rest of the pension world works in a 50 story building with a "distribution floor", a "QDRO floor", a "loan floor", etc. where each floor has 25-30 minions running around at the behest of the department head, etc. We do all the normal things that responsible, caring people do. We attend the ASPPA convention and take ASPPA credentialed courses. We read Sal's Bible faithfully. We bounce things off each other, call former colleagues, Google things, and look things up in the Answer Books put out by Aspen Publishers. We consult the ERISA attorney on call if necessary, but first, we have to know that it is necessary! It's a simple fact that no one human being (except maybe Sal Tripodi) has ALL of the knowledge about ALL of the topics in his brain and at his fingertips. We would like to be able to ask questions on here without coming under attack for what we don't know. After all, if we knew, and we knew that we knew, we wouldn't need this forum, would we? I do honestly believe that our tiny band gives it their all, every day, to do the best job they can for the clients and the participants with the tools and the information we have. QDROs come up maybe 4-5 times a year. As such, reviewing them is a negligible part of our overall duties.None of us have ever been presented with a case that was not attached to a DRO or a QDRO. This was something new, something we did not know could happen since we had never seen it before. We acted in good faith as we knew it at the time. The HR department of the client sent the marital settlement agreement because they thought it was important. We all were under the impression that once you knew, no matter how you knew, that an alternate payee had a right to part of a participant's account, the account was supposed to be frozen lest the participant run off with the alternate payee's balance. We now know better, but that doesn't make us stupid, ignorant, or bad administrators. We are darned good administrators who seldom process QDROs and never pretended to be attorneys. All this is to say that it's time to give anyone who asks a question on here the benefit of the doubt. They are at least TRYING. If they didn't care they wouldn't ask questions in the first place. Why not try to foster an environment where anyone from rookies to old fogies can ask questions without fear of repercussions?

Allowing for in-service distributions is much like offering a brokerage window with, arguably, less fiduciary exposure. I question the propriety of questioning the motives for the request, unless it might open a discussion of issues related to the plan investment menu and/or participant transaction capabilities. I would not like to be the one to suggest to the owner or anyone else that they are being bamboozled by their investment Svengali. On the other hand, account balances, particularly in smaller plans, may be critical to plan pricing. That is something the employer may want to consider wearing her business hat (if the employer pays those expenses) or wearing her fiduciary hat if the expenses are borne in whole or part by participants.