RMDs to deceased participant with no beneficiaries

We took over a plan and discovered that a participant died ten years ago and her balance is still in the plan.  Had she still been alive, she would have hit 70.5 a few years ago.  All the plan sponsor has for beneficiary information is a few names and phone numbers, and when they were called, all are no longer in service (and there was no SSN information, so any detailed search is out).  The old plan document (before we restated it when we took it over) said that all benefits would have to be paid out within five years of death... and that clearly wasn't done.  The prior TPA was just one person at a CPA firm who was doing bare minimum (calcs, 5500s, amendments/restatements), so it seems this never was discussed.

I don't think that our usual  rollover partner, Millennium Trust, takes distributions for deceased participants (at least, not knowingly).  And it seems a little late to try and pay it to an estate now.  Any suggestions for the best thing to do with this $1,600?  Thanks.

If the plan is ERISA-governed, ERISA § 404 governs which steps are prudent or imprudent.

But a plan’s administrator also might consider doing, if not imprudent, the steps the Internal Revenue Service has described as enough that an examiner should not challenge a plan’s tax-qualified treatment because of a failure to pay a § 401(a)(9)-required distribution.

Also, a plan’s administrator or trustee might evaluate whether it wants to follow the deceased participant’s investment direction, or change the investment of the participant’s account.

missing participant minimum distribution memo-for-employee-plans-10-19-17.pdf

Ask Millennium Trust for help finding the beneficiaries.  They've found a couple of beneficiaries for us under similar circumstances.

7 hours ago, AlbanyConsultant said:

We took over a plan and discovered that a participant died ten years ago and her balance is still in the plan.  Had she still been alive, she would have hit 70.5 a few years ago.  All the plan sponsor has for beneficiary information is a few names and phone numbers, and when they were called, all are no longer in service (and there was no SSN information, so any detailed search is out).  The old plan document (before we restated it when we took it over) said that all benefits would have to be paid out within five years of death... and that clearly wasn't done.  The prior TPA was just one person at a CPA firm who was doing bare minimum (calcs, 5500s, amendments/restatements), so it seems this never was discussed.

I don't think that our usual  rollover partner, Millennium Trust, takes distributions for deceased participants (at least, not knowingly).  And it seems a little late to try and pay it to an estate now.  Any suggestions for the best thing to do with this $1,600?  Thanks.

When in doubt... RTFD!  What does the plan say about inability to pay out because you can't find the person? Our document allows for forfeiture after you have done all the designated processes of searching.