DOL Seeks Feedback for 'Retirement Savings Lost and Found' Database
Secure 2.0 Act directs EBSA to establish a search tool by Dec. 29.
The Labor Department said Monday that its Employee Benefits Security Administration is seeking information from plan administrators to establish an online search tool to help America’s workers locate lost retirement savings.
The Secure 2.0 Act directs EBSA to establish a search tool to help missing participants and their beneficiaries find their retirement benefits by Dec. 29.
“The agency needs assistance from plan administrators to populate its online ‘Retirement Savings Lost and Found’ database,” Labor said Monday.
Retirement plans, including pension and 401(k) plans, sometimes lose track of people owed benefits due to incomplete recordkeeping, people changing employers and other reasons, EBSA explained.
In other cases, “workers may lose track of their retirement plans after their former employer goes out of business or when companies merge. People in these situations are considered ‘missing participants,’” EBSA said.
The notice of proposed information collection asks plan administrators to provide the information voluntarily on or before July 17, and proposes that “plan administrators can attach the requested information to their 2023 Form 5500 once they receive instructions on how to do so.”
Lisa Gomez, assistant secretary for employee benefits security, said in a statement that “the fundamental purpose of any retirement plan under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act is to pay promised benefits, and the Retirement Savings Lost and Found database will be another tool to help plans do so.”
EBSA said that it currently conducts “extensive investigations into circumstances surrounding missing participants.”
Since 2017, enforcement efforts have recovered more than $6.7 billion for missing participants and beneficiaries, EBSA reported.
EBSA wants feedback on “how to improve the information request so that the database can successfully connect individuals who have lost track of their retirement plan with the benefits they are owed.”
The new search tool “will help participants and beneficiaries locate their money more quickly and more efficiently, helping plans reduce their missing participant counts,” EBSA said.