Fees for locator services paid by plan

[Guest Rae]

Provided that the plan allows expenses to be paid from the plan itself, is it reasonable for a plan to pay expenses associated with using a commercial locator service to find missing participants in order to complete a plan termination? The plan in question is a 3-person DB plan where the owner will take the hit, so no participants' benefits are being reduced. We're looking for two people, so the fees won't be exorbitant by any means.

[AndyH]

This is by no means a legal opinion, but I would think that would be ok. But why not tell the owner to fess up the $30 and avoid the issue?

Better still, recommend that he get a legal opinion to support his $30 savings. Wouldn't somebody out there in Benefitslink land do that pro bono for this character?

[Guest ActuaryWannabe]

I'm almost certain that there used to be a Benefitslink Q & A column which has been discontinued, which addressed this question. My recollection is that there was not a definitive answer, but that the author concluded that the answer was that you "probably" couldn't do it, at least not on a per capita basis. However, that was prior to the more recent repositioning of the DOL relative to paying fees from plan assets, so I'm not sure the answer would be valid any more anyway.