Does a Self-Funded Health Plan have to rebate premiums that produce a surplus?

Does a self-insured health plan that charges premiums that produce a surplus, i.e. the total amount collected exceeds the claims paid/incurred, have to rebate any portion back to the employee? I cant seem to find an answer that clearly states that self-insured plans would be required to do so. Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

[Note: I have found PLR 200007025 [ https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-wd/0007025.pdf ]  which deals with another issue but notes that the self funded plan discussed has the following structure

"All premium payments (including the portion of the non-partner employee premium paid by Taxpayer) will be deposited into a dedicated account from which administrative expenses and eligible medical expenses under the Plan will be paid on behalf of all Plan participants. If the total premium payments are in excess of the claims and expenses incurred for a plan year, the excess will be used to pay claims and expenses of the Plan incurred in the following plan year and thus reduce premium payments for all participants in that following (or subsequent) plan year."

The PLR ultimately concluded that the plan qualifies as a health insurance arrangement, but this is a PLR and nearly 20 years old.]  

A self-funded health plan is not subject to the ACA's mandatory Medical Loss Ratio (MLR) rebate requirements and disposition/handling of the "excess" will be governed by the plan document.

If you don't find anything in the plan document and it's a "general assets" plan (no trust) then the excess belongs to the sponsoring employer to do with as it sees fit.

ERISAQuestions1234, if the employee premiums are contributed through 125 plan elections, then they do not have to be deposited into a trust and are therefore not clearly "plan assets." But even so, the employer is the administrator and fiduciary of an ERISA plan. If the amount of the surplus is less than the employer's aggregate contributions for the year and the plan permits this, perhaps the employer can take the money. But the very idea that there is a "surplus" of any sort implies that the money was segregated somewhere (e.g., a bank account, perhaps in the name of a TPA), so whether the surplus is "plan assets" is a matter of facts and circumstances (which you have not provided). And if, for example, the surplus was traceable to employee premiums (e.g., the plan is funded entirely by employee premiums), the employer would likely violate ERISA if it benefitted from the funds. There is case law on this, at least in 9th Circuit, as I recall.

The better practice is to have plan language where the employer contributions only top-up the employee contributions on an as-needed basis, so no surplus develops. Also, if there is a surplus, many employers would push it over to next year's plan expenditures to avoid using the assets for non-plan purposes.

Any excess funds can be retained by the employer, but must be used for benefits.  Most will use these monies to offset future plan costs.