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Annual Qualified Health Plan Certification Conference
March 2, 2016 in MD
(Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services [CMS])

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Today's Discussions on the BenefitsLink Message Boards

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Federal District Court Issues Landmark Decision in Church Plan Lawsuit (PDF)
"The court held that the defined benefit pension plan sponsored by [Catholic Health Initiative (CHI)] was a church plan ... dismissed the plaintiff's claims against all defendants, and awarded the defendants their costs. [The Medina court was] the first court to hold at the summary judgment stage that the plan of a Catholic health system was a church plan based on a full discovery record; the first court to suggest that a Catholic health system could qualify as a 'church' under 29 U.S.C. Section 1002(33)(A); and the first court to reject a plaintiff's Establishment Clause challenge to the church plan exemption on the merits." [ Medina v. Catholic Health Initiatives , No. 13-cv-01249 (D. Colo. Dec. 8, 2015)] (Groom Law Group)

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Advisors: Attend NAPA's 2016 401(k) Summit, April 17-19 in Nashville

Register for NAPA's 2016 401(k) Summit ? the event Plan Advisors won't want to miss! Enjoy networking with other financial advisors and TPAs while earning up to 14 hours of NAPA/ASPPA CE credits from innovative sessions on the topics that matter most to YOU.

Suit Alleges Excessive Fees, Imprudent Investments in Insperity 401(k) Plan Sold to Employers
"[P]articipants in an Insperity 401(k) plan sold to small- and midsized employers [have] alleged the company and its subsidiaries charged 'excessive' record-keeping fees and made other fiduciary breaches of ERISA. The complaint ... also alleges that Reliance Trust Co., the discretionary trustee for the plan, breached its fiduciary duties by allegedly making 'imprudent' investment decisions.... The suit cites only the $2.05 billion 401(k) plan sold to employers by Insperity ... The plaintiffs are four participants in this plan for Insperity clients, but the clients aren't identified in the complaint. The lawsuit does not affect Insperity's $208.6 million plan for its own employees, the Insperity Corporate 401(k) plan." (Pensions & Investments)

Low-Cost Options Drive Down 401(k) Expenses
"Total plan costs ... fell from 1.02 percent of assets in the average 401(k) plan in 2009 to 0.89 percent of assets in 2013. The average plan participant in 2013 faced total plan costs of 0.58 percent compared with 0.65 percent in 2009 ... and the average dollar invested saw total costs of 0.42 percent in 2013, down from 0.47 percent in 2009." (Financial Advisor)

Congressional Action on Proposed DOL Fiduciary Rule Postponed to 2016
"Although several possible approaches were actively discussed, Congress ultimately did not pass any legislation in 2015. But these approaches remain open for 2016.... The Roskam-Neal bill ... would establish a 'best interest' standard for investment advice rendered to qualified retirement plans and IRAs ... and would adopt several elements of the DOL proposal but with a number of modifications. The Roe-Larson bill ... would make largely parallel changes to ERISA. Both bills would prohibit the DOL from amending the current fiduciary investment advice definition unless Congress specifically approves such a DOL rule within a specified time period." (Morgan Lewis)

Quarterly Survey of Public Pensions: Third Quarter 2015
"The survey provides national summary data on the revenues, expenditures and composition of assets of the largest defined benefit public employee pension systems for state and local governments. This report produces three tables: [two] include data on cash and security holdings and [the third] provides data on earnings on investments, contributions, and payments." (U.S. Census Bureau)

Negative Effect of Eliminating File-and-Suspend Strategy May Be Overblown
"For a 66-year-old couple, average life expectancy is 82 for a man and 86 for a woman. But if you assume one or both spouses will live longer than average, the file-and-suspend strategy becomes the optimum claiming strategy in 26% of the cases ... Even then, the scheduled elimination of the file-and-suspend strategy would result in an average loss of about $6,000 over both lifetimes[.]" (InvestmentNews)

New Jersey Senate Budget Panel Approves Mandatory Participation by Private Employers in Proposed State-Run Retirement Plan
"The bill (S2831) would require companies with at least 25 employees that don't already offer retirement accounts to offer the 'Secure Choice' retirement plan. Smaller companies with fewer than 25 employees can opt in.... The legislation has already passed the state Assembly." (NJ.com)

IRS Provides Additional Guidance on Treatment of Same-Sex Marriages Under Benefit Plans
"[A] sponsor may want to amend its qualified retirement plans to provide additional benefits and protections for participants with same-sex spouses, such as offering a new joint and survivor annuity election in cases where the participant was previously required to begin receiving a single life annuity. Because these would be discretionary and not mandatory amendments, [ Notice 2015-86 ] cautions that the amendments would be subject to the same funding restrictions (for defined benefit pension plans) and nondiscrimination tests that apply to all discretionary amendments.... For [health] plans that do offer spousal coverage ... the Obergefell decision may require the plan to recognize additional same-sex marriages and to extend coverage to additional spouses." (Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP)