"If your participants don't understand the information contained in their SPDs, they may make unsound, and potentially costly, benefits decisions. To determine whether your SPDs have readability issues, you should re-read the SPDs from a participant's viewpoint ... Providing updated SPDs every five or 10 years to former retirement plan participants with vested benefits, retirees receiving benefits, and beneficiaries receiving benefits may seem like an unnecessary cost, given that those individuals won't be affected by most plan changes. To lessen the burden on plan administrators, the ERISA rules include an alternative distribution method for such situations."  MORE >>