Initiative seeks to reunite participants, beneficiaries with their benefits
Source: U.S. Department of Labor
WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Labor’s Employee Benefits Security Administration today issued a notice requesting information from retirement plan administrators that will allow it to begin populating the Retirement Savings Lost and Found database, an online search tool to help America’s workers locate lost retirement savings they earned.
Retirement plans, including pension and 401(k) plans, sometimes lose track of retirement plan participants owed benefits. These people are known as “missing participants.” Retirement plans lose track of missing participants for a variety of reasons, including incomplete recordkeeping and workers changing jobs. In other cases, workers may lose track of their retirement plans after their former employer goes out of business or when companies merge.
The SECURE 2.0 Act directed EBSA to establish the Retirement Savings Lost and Found database to help missing participants and their beneficiaries find their retirement benefits. To populate the database, the department needs retirement plan administrators, recordkeepers and other service providers to work together to voluntarily provide the information as a first step towards making the database available to the public.
The Retirement Savings Lost and Found database started accepting data on Nov. 18, 2024, and it is expected to go live by Dec. 29, 2024. EBSA will be working with plan administrators, recordkeepers and others to populate the database before it is launched to the public.
“The fundamental purpose of any job-based retirement plan is to pay promised benefits to the workers who participate in those plans and plan beneficiaries. Our goal, which we believe plan sponsors and administrators and their service providers share, is to make sure that workers and their beneficiaries receive all the retirement benefits they earned and were promised through their working careers so that they can look forward to a secure and enjoyable retirement,” said Assistant Secretary for Employee Benefits Security Lisa M. Gomez. “The Retirement Savings Lost and Found database will be another tool to help plans carry out this responsibility. We all need to work together to achieve that goal, and we appreciate the partnership of the retirement plan community in moving forward.”
The notice of information collection request describes the specific data elements the agency is seeking and how information can be submitted. EBSA has received comments and coordinated with stakeholders on how to best collect and protect this data.
EBSA conducts extensive investigations into circumstances surrounding missing participants. Since 2017, enforcement efforts have recovered more than $7 billion in retirement benefits paid directly to missing participants and beneficiaries.
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