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The Spencer’s Benefits Reports is a summary of the week's news items posted in the WHAT'S NEW pages of Spencer’s Benefits Reports Online. For questions regarding this email service, contact Customer Service at (800)449-9525.
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In a recent report to Congress, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) analyzed the funded status of pension and health care benefits offered by state and local governments. In preparing the report, the GAO examined the key measures of the funded status of retiree benefits; and the current funded status of retiree benefits. The GAO analyzed data on public pensions, reviewed current literature, and interviewed a range of experts on public retiree benefits, actuarial science, and accounting…
The Department of Labor’s Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) has announced that it has extended the deadline for filing Form 5500 and Form 5500-EZ annual report/returns due to damages from severe storms, tornadoes, straight-line winds, and flooding in Kentucky. President George W. Bush has declared nine counties in Kentucky a disaster area due to the damage caused by severe weather…
The trustees of a union health and welfare plan could not recover delinquent benefit plan contributions from the shareholders of a bankrupt company that had been obligated to contribute to the plan. This was the decision of the Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Trustees of the Graphic Communications International Union Upper Midwest Local 1M Health and Welfare Plan v. Bjorkedal (Nos. 07-1256 and 07-1258)…
As Dana Corporation emerged from bankruptcy court protection, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation called the retention of the auto parts supplier’s retirement plans a victory for the private defined benefit plan system. “Dana’s pension plans will remain under company sponsorship, which means that no worker or retiree will lose a single hard-earned retirement dollar,” stated PBGC director Charles E.F. Millard. “I am pleased to say that by working with Dana’s management over the course of the bankruptcy process, the PBGC helped achieve this success. Dana should be commended for keeping its pension commitments to its workers and executing a successful turnaround that didn’t rely on the PBGC as part of its exit strategy from Chapter 11”…
Eighty-two percent of group health plans offer dental coverage to members, according to the Segal Company. The Segal Survey of Dental Coverage found that dental coverage lags behind only medical and prescription drug coverage as the most utilized benefit provided to employees…
In four recent disaster relief announcements, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation waives certain penalties and extends certain deadlines for entities affected by the severe storms, flooding, and tornadoes that recently occurred in Indiana, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Kentucky. The relief provided by the announcements applies to entities such as plan administrators and contributing sponsors located in any of the affected counties in the four states…
Medical benefits accounted for the largest share of employer benefits costs in the most recent annual study of employee benefits by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Medical costs accounted for 12.1% of total benefits, followed by retirement benefits which accounted for 10.4%, according to the 2007 Employee Benefits Study. Payments for vacation, holidays, and other paid time off resulted in 9.8% of costs…
Of the 2,000 adults responding in February 2008 to a telephone survey by the Harvard School of Public Health and Harris Interactive who indicated that they understood the term “socialized medicine” (67%), 45% said that the U.S. would be better off with socialized medicine than under the current system, while 39% said it would be “worse off…”
A federal district court properly dismissed plaintiffs’ class action lawsuit alleging breaches of fiduciary duty against two union pension plans. This was the ruling of the Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Hastings and Karpiuk v. Wilson, et al. (No. 07-1611)…
The Department of Labor’s Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) has issued proposed regulations that would establish a safe harbor period of seven business days during which amounts that an employer has received from employees or withheld from wages for contribution to employee benefit plans with fewer than 100 participants would not constitute “plan assets” for purposes of Title I of ERISA. The proposed regulations appeared in the February 29 Federal Register…
More than one-third of surveyed employers offered a consumer driven health plan option in 2007, according to a recent benefits survey from the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans…
In Rev. Rul. 2008-13, the Internal Revenue Service holds that a compensation arrangement is not a “performance-based plan” within the meaning of IRC Sec.162(m) because the plan provides for payouts upon a company’s involuntary termination of its executive or a “good reason” termination by the executive…
A.J. DesJardins Roofing Company of Exeter, N.H., and its owner have repaid $32,701 to the company’s 401(k) plan to resolve a lawsuit filed by the Department of Labor for failing to timely deposit employee contributions owed to the plan and file reports required by ERISA. The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire, as Chao v. Albeo DesJardins Jr. (Civil Action No. 08-CV-00012 (SM))…
The Department of Labor’s Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) has scheduled a public hearing for March 20-21 on the agency’s recent proposed regulations under ERISA Sec. 408(b)(2) regarding fee disclosure by 401((k) and similar retirement plans. Notice of the hearing was published in the February 27 Federal Register…
The one-year median investment return for 235 corporate defined benefit plans in 2007 was 8.1%, according to data recently released by Mercer Investment Consulting, Inc., in its Summary Performance of U.S. Institutional Portfolios. For the fourth quarter of 2007, the median investment return for 252 plans was -0.7%. Using time-weighted rates of return, gross of fees, Mercer reported that median returns for the five years ending Dec. 31, 2007, were 12.8% for 193 plans measured; for the ten-year period, the median return was 7.7% for 141 plans…
Rising health care costs will “dramatically increase” the number of American workers who probably will not be financially prepared to retire, the Center for Retirement Research (CRR) at Boston College has warned. According to CRR’s National Retirement Risk Index, 61% of workers will not be financially ready to retire, up significantly from 44% in July 2007. The CRR blames the rapid rise in medical costs, 43% in the past five years, which now represents more than one-fifth of all personal spending…
An American Cancer Society study of 3.5 million cancer patients found that uninsured or Medicaid patients are much more likely than individuals with private insurance to be diagnosed at advanced stages of their disease. The researchers asserted that, “providing adequate insurance coverage is an important step toward narrowing the gap…”
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