A Fortune 500 company with more than 17,000 employees had acquired numerous pension plans over the years. By the summer of 2020, most of the acquired plans had been consolidated, but the client was still managing one frozen pension plan with around 13,000 participants. The client wished to terminate the plan, but in order to complete the termination, it would need to resolve hundreds of uncashed checks.
Fortunately, the client had Mindy Zatto and her team at Strategic Benefits Advisors (SBA) to guide it through the plan termination process, including cleanup of participant data and resolution of uncashed checks. SBA began by coordinating with the plan recordkeeper to identify which participants had uncashed checks and determine an appropriate course of action. For instance, in cases where SBA was successful in locating the participant, it worked directly with the client’s bank to re-issue stale-dated checks for immediate deposit. In instances where participants still receiving benefits did not respond to requests to begin the reissue process, SBA coordinated the delivery of assets to the client’s annuity provider. And where participants could not be located or when checks were owed to deceased participants, SBA handled the transfer of assets to the PBGC on the client’s behalf.
In just six months, SBA successfully resolved all uncashed checks for the terminated plan. The client gained peace of mind from knowing it had distributed plan assets within the ERISA- and IRS-mandated timeframes and that each resolution was clearly documented in an audit-ready compliance trail. Moreover, the client helped nearly 500 participants receive previously unclaimed benefits during a time of widespread financial hardship (the coronavirus pandemic).
