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" If your welfare plan (medical, dental, life insurance, disability, etc) has under 100 participants at the beginning of the year, you are exempt from filing Form 5500 if it is (a) unfunded, (b) fully insured, or (c) a combination of insured and unfunded. But wait, there’s more. The instructions to the 5500 toss in the following: "see 29CFR 2520.104-20." If you whip out your copy of the CFR, you will see an "and", as in "and for which, in the case of an insured plan—— (i) Refunds, to which contributing participants are entitled, are returned to them within three months of receipt by the employer or employee organization, and (ii) Contributing participants are informed upon entry into the plan of the provisions of the plan concerning the allocation of refunds." Based on the above rules for insured plans with under 100 participants being exempt from 5500 filing - has anyone run into someone getting fine for failure to file it they failed to address refund allocations? Did MLR requirements from the ACA address this enough that having the refund allocation detail in the SPD is unnecessary to still have the 5500 exemption? Has anyone ever had this issue come up post MLR/ACA as a road block to small fully insured plan exemption? I ask because I see many small insured plans that are not filing and do NOT have any reference to refunds or refund allocations. Some are claiming the MLR rules negate this since they dictate the refunds.

Four entities are in same controlled group/affiliated services group. 3 of the entities participate in one fully insured wrap welfare benefit plan (medical,dental, premium only plan). All insurance contracts for that plan are signed by the plan sponsor (i.e., one of the 3 entities). Since this plan had 140 participants at start of plan year, my understanding is that we will need to file Form 5500 for it. The remaining entity has its own separate fully insured wrap welfare benefit plan (medical, dental, premium only plan ). This entity is the plan sponsor and all insurance contracts are signed by it. There are only 22 participants at start of plan year. Does a 5500 have to be filed for this plan too, or is a 5500 not required for this plan until the plan reaches 100 participant threshold at start of another plan year? Related question: For annual discrimination testing, do you have to aggregate all the participants from both plans together or can you test separately? Thank you for any input .

Employer allows broker to promote "voluntary" insurance products (AFLAC type junk) to employees and accommodates payment of premiums via payroll deduction (no employer contribution). Are these "employee welfare benefit plans" subject to ERISA and requiring filing of 5500s if large enough? Does it matter whether the premiums are being deducted pre-tax pursuant to a cafeteria plan or after-tax? Thanks