"We have a defined benefit plan that was frozen back in 2017. The Plan Sponsor recently amended the Plan to allow for lump sum payments. We had a terminated vested participant who just passed away. The only death benefit was the QPSA for married participants. This individual was divorced (I believe back in 2020). The Plan sponsor received a copy of the divorce settlement from the ex-wife after the Participant died. The divorce settlement stated that the full benefit from the defined benefit plan was payable to the spouse. No QDRO was ever written....

'We told the ex-wife that she needs a QDRO before any payment can be made. However, there is some disagreement in our office as to whether or not there are any benefits payable to the ex. My argument is that the Participant died prior to the request for any payments to begin. He had attained Early Retirement Age but was a few years from Normal Retirement Age. As an unmarried Participant, there is no death benefit so the ex is not entitled to any benefit. Another administrator in the office thinks that if a QDRO is written, then the death of the participant should not affect the payment available to the ex since she was the Alternate Payee and entitled to 100% of the benefit. I still think any benefit payable to the ex is contingent on the Participant being alive at the time an election is made. The Plan Sponsor has no problem with paying the benefit to the ex if she can get a QDRO issued. Any thoughts out there on the benefit payable in this situation?"

"The forms for an employee-benefit plan's annual report ask questions designed to check some points about whether the plan's fiduciaries meet their responsibility. Imagine a recordkeeper, third-party administrator, auditor, or other service provider now is thinking about a value-add for next year's 5500 services.

"The idea: List all Form 5500, including Schedules, queries that ask something for which a report's reader could use the response to detect or suspect a possible breach of a fiduciary's responsibility. (Not a tax-qualification failure, unless it also involves some other breach of an ERISA fiduciary responsibility.)

"Isolating those Form 5500 queries in one list would aid a service provider's review to spot responses that could lead to government or private enforcement. Let's crowd-source the list, with each BenefitsLink neighbor noting one query."

"We have a 401k plan that started in 2023 and is large enough that it uses the automatic enrollment procedures. Now this smaller company is considering purchasing a larger business that has their own 401k plan, that was created at least 20 years ago. If the 2023 plan is merged into the larger plan, does the automatic enrollment feature have to carry over? Is that considered a protected benefit? Or, if the smaller plan is terminated and the smaller plan's employees become eligible for the larger plan, and that larger plan does not have auto enroll? Is that a problem?"