A: There is no universal threshold. The more important question is whether your population of missing participants is growing, how long those individuals have been unresponsive, and whether you have a process in place to find them.
Many plan sponsors underestimate the scope of the issue. Participants change jobs, relocate, change their names, and pass away without updating their information. Over time, stale addresses, inactive accounts, uncashed checks, and missing beneficiaries can quietly accumulate. In fact, industry research suggests that up to one-third of terminated vested records may contain stale addresses, while standard search methods successfully reunite fewer than 10% of missing participants with their benefits.
Missing participants create more than administrative headaches. They can increase compliance risk, complicate audits and plan transactions, and make it more difficult for plan sponsors to fulfill their fiduciary responsibilities. SBA helps plan sponsors identify and locate missing participants and beneficiaries through a comprehensive search process that combines data analysis, targeted research, and direct outreach. Reuniting participants with their benefits helps reduce risk, improve plan administration, and ensure employees receive the retirement benefits they earned.