Abandoned-Plan Asset Holders Can Tap Pension Insurer: Agency

Fiduciaries representing terminated or abandoned retirement plans have been granted access to a federal pension insurer program when plan participants or beneficiaries are unresponsive.

The U.S. Labor Department’s Employee Benefits Security Administration is aiming the temporary enforcement policy at banks, insurers, and mutual fund companies that are left holding retirement assets when plan sponsors have been bought out, merged, or gone under. Those asset holders can now offload funds into the newly expanded Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation’s Missing Participants Program, rather than into an individual retirement account, as outlined in a safe harbor provision of the Employee Retirement Income Security ...