Compliance December 30, 2024

DOL Launches Database for Retirement Savings Lost and Found

The database is designed to help America’s workers search for retirement plans that may still owe them benefits.

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The U.S. Department of Labor’s Employee Benefits Security Administration on December 27 launched the public Retirement Savings Lost and Found Database, a tool designed to help America’s workers and beneficiaries search for retirement plans that may still owe them benefits. 

Created as part of the SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022, the database serves as a centralized location where individuals or their beneficiaries can search for lost or forgotten retirement accounts and receive guidance on how to claim their funds. By inputting personal details such as name and Social Security number, users can locate accounts from previous employers, addressing a persistent challenge in the modern labor market. 

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“The Department of Labor has launched the Retirement Savings Lost and Found Database,” said a spokesperson for the DOL via email. “While the database has been launched, we hope that future improvements will result in higher data quality so retirement savings can be returned to America’s workers and retirees.” 

Labor Turnover 

Over recent decades, the average American’s career path has shifted significantly. According to a 2023 report from the Department of Labor, individuals born in the latter years of the Baby Boom (1957-64) held an average of 12.7 jobs between ages 18 and 56, with nearly half of these roles held from ages 18 to 24. Each job transition increases the risk of employees losing track of employer-sponsored retirement accounts, particularly when savings are not rolled over into new plans or individual retirement accounts. 

Billions of dollars in unclaimed retirement savings remain idle across financial institutions and employers. Since 2017, EBSA enforcement efforts have recovered more than $7 billion in retirement benefits paid directly to missing participants and beneficiaries, the DOL reported in November. 

Data Collection 

To establish the Retirement Savings Lost and Found Database, the DOL at first turned to the IRS for data collected on Form 8955-SSA, Annual Registration Statement Identifying Participants with Deferred Vested Benefits. The IRS, however, did not provide this data to the DOL due to privacy laws in the Internal Revenue Code.  

The Office of Management and Budget’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs then approved, in November, an information collection request developed by EBSA under the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995. This request allows EBSA to collect information from retirement plan administrators and their recordkeepers to populate and maintain the database. 

“We encourage providers to respond to our voluntary request for information to help build a more robust database, and we will continue to work with our government partners to further improve the database,” said the DOL spokesperson.  

Compliance December 26, 2024

New ERISA Advisory Council Members Named

The DOL has appointed five new members to the policy advisory group.

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The Department of Labor Thursday announced the appointment of five new members and leadership for the 2025 ERISA Advisory Council, formally known as the Advisory Council on Employee Welfare and Pension Benefit Plans.

The 15-member council gives advice on policies and regulations affecting employee benefit plans governed by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974.

Most recently, the recent ERISA Advisory Council meeting the group voted unanimously to send three proposals to the DOL on qualified default investment alternatives. The proposals are aimed at improving participant awareness and retirement income utilization of QDIAs in defined contribution plans.

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The proposals include issuing guidance to help plan fiduciaries select and monitor retirement income options, enhancing participant education on QDIA investments across all retirement phases, and amending safe harbor rules to allow automatic rollovers into the same QDIAs as employer-sponsored plans.

The new council members’ three-year terms are staggered and include people with experience in nine fields. Three members represent employee organizations, three represent employers and three represent the general public. One member each is selected from the fields of accounting, actuarial counseling, corporate trust, insurance, investment counseling and investment management.

“The ERISA Advisory Council plays an invaluable role advising the Department of Labor on important issues,” said Assistant Secretary for Employee Benefits Security Lisa M. Gomez in a statement. “We look forward to the contributions of the new members and are thankful for the extensive expertise and experience they will bring to the council, and we thank the outgoing members for their time, service and contributions to the work of the council.”

The 2025 council appointees and their areas of expertise are:

Actuarial Counseling: Christian Benjaminson, a vice president and principal consulting actuary at Cheiron Inc. primarily advising multiemployer plans. Benjaminson has more than 25 years of experience as an actuarial consultant.

Employee Organizations: Wendell Young, president of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1776 Keystone State as well as vice president of the UFCW International Union. Young serves as a trustee overseeing health and pension benefit trust funds for the union’s 35,000 members. He also serves on the Strategic Initiative Steering Committee for the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans.

Employers: Jay Dorsch, chair of the employee benefits and executive compensation practice of the Cozen O’Connor law firm. Dorsch represents clients before the IRS, the Department of Labor and the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp.

General Public: Elizabeth Hopkins, a senior partner at Kantor & Kantor LLP and head of the firm’s pension practice. Hopkins joined the firm in 2018 after a long career at the Department of Labor where, for 15 years, she served as head of the ERISA appellate and amicus program.

Investment Counseling: Craig Wright, a founding partner at Strategic Financial with 15 years of experience as a financial adviser. Wright received a master’s degree in business administration from Southwest Baptist University. He is a Certified Financial Planner and has holds a Chartered Financial Consultant designation.

Current council Chair Mayoung Nham will continue to serve as chair in 2025. A principal with the law firm of Slevin & Hart PC, Nham has over 15 years of experience in employee benefits law, representing multiemployer pension plans and welfare funds on plan design, tax qualification, disclosure, contracting, compliance and other issues.

Council member Anusha Rasalingam will serve as the council’s vice chair in 2025. A partner at Friedman and Anspach, Rasalingam has 20 years of experience in employee benefits law. She advises on healthcare and retirement benefits issues for single and multiemployer plans, and counsels on compliance with multiple areas of ERISA.

The outgoing members are Actuarial Counseling: Tonya Manning, Shaun C. O’Brien, Holly Verdeyen, Jeffrey Lewis and Beth Halberstadt.

Information about the ERISA Advisory Council, including the council’s reports, can be found on its web page.

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