Plan documents

[alexa]

Does a health & welfare plan contract with the vendor(i.e. medical, dental, vision, etc...) substitute fro a plan document? We wil be distributing ERISA required SPD's.

What are the advantages/disadvantages of a wrap document? If doing a wrap doc , is a wrap SPD required?

[oriecat]

It is my understanding (and experience) that most insurance contracts do not contain all of the required elements to constitute a legal plan document under ERISA, which is why a wrap doc is needed to add the things that are missing.

The wraps that I have seen work as both the wrap SPD and wrap doc, depending upon whether they are wrapping the insurance contracts, thus making the plan doc, or wrapping the summaries given to employees, thus making the SPD.