Fidelity Bond Requirements

[Guest tzuck]

It's my understanding that PPA changed the maximum for bonding for plans holding employer securities to $1,000,000; is that right? If so, how does the new upper limit apply? Is the rule still that the bond must be the greater of $1,000 or 10% of plan assets not to exceed $1 million?

[BeckyMiller]

ERISA 412(a) now includes the following:

The amount of such bond shall be fixed at the beginning of each fiscal year of the plan. Such amount shall be not less than 10 per centum of the amount of funds handled. In no case shall such bond be less than $1,000 nor more than $500,000, except that the Secretary, after due notice and opportunity for hearing to all interested parties, and after consideration of the record, may prescribe an amount in excess of $500,000, subject to the 10 per centum limitation of the preceding sentence. For purposes of fixing the amount of such bond, the amount of funds handled shall be determined by the funds handled by the person, group, or class to be covered by such bond and by their predecessor or predecessors, if any, during the preceding reporting year, or if the plan has no preceding reporting year, the amount of funds to be handled during the current reporting year by such person, group, or class, estimated as provided in regulations of the Secretary. Such bond shall provide protection to the plan against loss by reason of acts of fraud or dishonesty on the part of the plan official, directly or through connivance with others. Any bond shall have as surety thereon a corporate surety company which is an acceptable surety on Federal bonds under authority granted by the Secretary of the Treasury pursuant to sections 9304-9308 of title 31. Any bond shall be in a form or of a type approved by the Secretary, including individual bonds or schedule or blanket forms of bonds which cover a group or class. In the case of a plan that holds employer securities (within the meaning of section 407(d)(1)), this subsection shall be applied by substituting "$1,000,000" for "$500,000'"each place it appears.

So, basically, the rule is the same as it always was except that you substitute $1,000,000 where it previously read $500,000.