Bernard Kearse, the lawyer who started the program, says many employers are unaware that they need to create summary plan documents for group life, medical, dental and disability plans as well as for retirement plans. Other employers believe that a plan’s certificate of insurance is a summary plan document, or that someone else is preparing the SPDs and Form 5500s, ERISA Pros says.
Rather than giving blank SPD and Form 5500 templates to employers, ERISA Pros staffers will call employers each year to the information needed to update the filings and make sure the filings really are updated, ERISA Pros says.