Even as employers work diligently on their 2004 planning and budgets, new rules, regulations, and proposed legislation relating to benefits are about to make an already tough task more difficult. Here are highlights of just a few issues you should watch.
An employer has been ordered to pay a life insurance beneficiary the difference between the benefits under an old version of the benefit plan and the revised version because the summary plan description (SPD) for the revised plan was not properly distributed and was never received by the employee.
Usually, someone seeking to overturn a denial of benefits in an ERISA plan must exhaust all of the appeals procedures provided in the plan before going to court. But not this time.
Once an ERISA fiduciary has material information relevant to a plan participant or beneficiary, it must provide that information, whether or not it is asked a question.
