Welfare Plans

[mlp0816]

We recently pulled all of our welfare benefit programs together under one document, however, the plans still exist separately. Do we need to file separate 5500's for each or could all be filed under one 5500 form?

[QDROphile]

Depends on how you designed the plan/plans. If you have a plan that is an "umbrella" or "wrapper" for the other plans, you could have a single plan for ERISA purposes. The number of pages or staples is not what determines.

[jpod]

Aside from some court decisions which are not really on point, I do not believe there is definitive guidance for determining when fully insured welfare benefits constitute one plan or multiple plans? For what it's worth, as long as you are in a situation where a 5500 is required (i.e., more than 100 participants at the beginning of the plan year), I don't think the DOL cares too much whether you file a single 5500 and distribute a single SAR for a single plan with multiple benefit offerings and multiple Schedule As, vs. multiple 5500s and SARs. Where the DOL cares, I think, is if you are artificially "juggling" plans and benefit offerings for the purpose of taking advantage of the exemption from filing for small plans. For example, treating each health coverage option under a group health care program as a separate "plan" so that each such "plan" is small enough population-wise to be exempt from filing when in reality the entire program is a single plan with employee choice within the plan, or treating a single package of health insurance coverages for more than 100 participants as two or more plans each covering less than 100 because you have a different premium-sharing structure for separate groups of employees.