The Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) is a federal law that sets minimum standards for most voluntarily established retirement and health plans in private industry to provide protection for individuals in these plans.
An ERISA fidelity bond is a type of insurance that protects the plan against losses caused by acts of fraud or dishonesty. Fraud or dishonesty includes, but is not limited to, larceny, theft, embezzlement, forgery, misappropriation, wrongful abstraction, wrongful conversion, willful misapplication, and other acts.
The provisions of Title I of ERISA, which are administered by the U.S. Department of Labor, were enacted to address public concern that funds of private pension plans were being mismanaged and abused.
Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) The Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) is a federal law that sets minimum standards for most voluntarily established retirement and health plans in private industry to provide protection for individuals in these plans.
Violations of ERISA happen when a party with certain obligations imposed under the law fails to live up to those obligations. Some of the most common ERISA violations include: Improper denial of benefits to current or former employees. Breach of fiduciary duty toward employees covered by plans.
ERISA prohibits certain transactions between an employee benefit plan and "parties in interest," which include the employer and others who may be in a position to exercise improper influence over the plan, and such transactions may trigger civil monetary penalties under Title I of ERISA.
ERISA governs the claim only if ERISA covers the plan involved in the claim. ERISA applies to most employee benefit plans, including employee health and retirement plans. ERISA does not cover certain plans, such as government plans and church plans.
ERISA requires plans to provide participants with plan information including important information about plan features and funding; provides fiduciary responsibilities for those who manage and control plan assets; requires plans to establish a grievance and appeals process for participants to get benefits from their ...
A claimant must pursue at least one ERISA appeal before filing suit. This is known as the exhaustion of administrative remedies doctrine. A claimant can typically file a lawsuit after the first appeal, although some plans do require a mandatory second appeal before litigation can commence.
Contact your regional EBSA office to file a complaint or an appeal after exhausting your insurance appeals process. You can also find ERISA information through the U.S. Department of Labor online at .dol/ebsa.