Why Proactively Engaging With Participants Matters: 2023 Update
As noted in our original article dated June 17, 2022, DOL has made the location of missing participants and payment of benefits to those individuals a regulatory priority. DOL continues to make missing participants a priority, resulting in the issue persisting for plan sponsors. In 2022, DOL’s enforcement program recovered over $500 million in assets related to the terminated vested participant project.1 This focus appears as if it will be sustained into the future; the DOL has asked Congress for 22 full-time employees to establish a dedicated program focused on missing retirement plan participants in its 2024 budget.
Thus, we continue to recommend that plan sponsors take steps reasonably calculated to finding missing participants and making required benefit payments. The practices described in our original article continue make sense for plan sponsors looking to reduce their regulatory risks. In this respect, while there is no one-size-fits all approach to finding missing participants, engaging a service provider with specific expertise in this area to assist the plan can be very beneficial to those looking to minimize regulatory risk.
