Welfare Benefit Plan - Do I have fewer than 100 employees?

[Guest LWilson]

I have a Welfare Benefit Plan that provides participants a plethora of Insurance Companies to choose from. As a result, each Schedule A has a sprinkling of participants.

If I were to total all the employees covered by each of these insurances, I could exceed 100 participants in the Welfare Benefit Plan as a whole.

So what am I counting? Individual Schedule A counts, or total employees participating in the Welfare Benefit Plan as a whole?

[Ron Snyder]

If each plan is separate (separate documentation, eligibility, etc.) then you would not be over 100 IMHO. If either by the facts or the documents the plans are or have been aggregated (say for reporting or SPD purposes) the plans would be considered one plan. Do you run separate discrimination tests, or test together? Etc.

[Guest LWilson]

It's all in aggregate - all the same plan number, just different offerings to choose from.

Looks like I would file . . . complete a Schedule A for each Insurance Company and provide participant counts for those, and provide my total enrolled employees on the 5500 . . .

Thanks.

[Kirk Maldonado]

IMHO, if you file a single Form 5500, you have to aggregate all participants.

If you don't want to go over 100 participants, file separate Form 5500s.