Individual Benefit Statements

[Guest Blowout]

When is the Plan Administrator supposed to distribute the Individual Benefit Statement to employees. I know that it is once a year, but I thought it was to be sent no later than 8 months after the end of the fisical year ending December 31st.

[RLL]

Under the current provisions of ERISA, an individual benefit statement need not be provided automatically....but can be supplied only upon request of a participant (and only one such request per year must be complied with). It's surprising that ERISA requires annual distribution of something as unimportant (and meaningless to participants) as the summary annual report, but does not require an annual benefits statement.