I am having difficulty interpreting part III. What is a lay person's understanding of the difference between part 9 experience rated and part 10 non-experience rated? Are experience-rated fully insured while non-experience rated self insured?

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The Certificate in Retirement Plans provides an overview of defined benefit and defined contribution plans, Social Security, basic investment principles, qualified plans, 401(k) plans and the legal and regulatory environment surrounding plans today.

A single participant retired from a qualified, ERISA DB plan at age 55 with a life annuity with 10 years of payments (120 months) guaranteed. He named his sister as beneficiary. 3 years after the annuity starting date, he got married. I presume the spouse has no right to the guaranteed benefits if the retiree dies before 120 payments have been made, correct? Any guaranteed payments will go to the named beneficiary (the sister). Are there any issues if the retiree wants to change the beneficiary? I presume he could contact the plan sponsor to make this change -- but I'm not certain if it would violate a code or regulation. I don't believe it would change the benefit amount -- as the calculation of the life annuity with 10 years guaranteed does not factor in the beneficiary's age/sex. Does it create a new annuity starting date? We're assuming the plan document is silent on the matter. It doesn't prohibit a retiree to change the beneficiary after the ASD, but it doesn't specifically allow it either.

Our document software creates an SPD for delivery to participants. I know it's not required but of course it is a good and thorough explanation of the plan so I would typically have clients distribute (whether exempt or not). I have a new client where the provisions are quite complex and vary depending on which group of employees you are "disclosing" to, which makes production and distribution of the SPD's a bit more challenging. So I know they are not required to use an SPD (they have informal informational sheets). But are there benefits to distributing a complete SPD to all Participants which clients may wish to avail themselves of? One thing that comes to mind is reducing the risk of an employee saying "Geeze if you had told me that.."

A non-governmental 457(b) plan is terminating. However, the plan document was never updated for PPA, HEART, and WRERA. I understand that any plan correction cannot be through VCP, but the plan sponsor has option for the IRS to review their 457(b) plan document or consider any other document form issue by requesting a private letter ruling? In a related issue, in distributing assets upon plan termination, what procedures can the plan sponsor implement when distributees cannot be located?