SUMMARY PLAN DESCRIPTIONS

FOR BROKERS

UNDER DEPARTMENT OF LABOR (DOL) AND INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE (IRS) REGULATIONS, CERTAIN INFORMATION ABOUT YOUR CLIENTS’ EMPLOYEE BENEFIT PLANS CAN BE DISTRIBUTED ELECTRONICALLY BOTH WITHIN AND OUTSIDE THE WORKPLACE.

Summary Plan Descriptions are developed to summarize benefits so that they can be read and understood by the average plan participant. Creation and maintenance of SPDs demands considerable time, effort, and resources from your clients because each SPD must include the plan provisions as well the rights and responsibilities of your clients and their employees. In addition to verifying that the benefit plans are current and in compliance, their administration is reviewed to confirm they are being carried out as your client intended. Your clients may seek legal consultation to further review the SPD’s content prior to distribution.

With your large clients, many people are typically involved in the generation and management of SPDs. Because of the numerous moving parts involved in this process, SPDs in large organizations are at higher-risk for inconsistencies and errors. RT Consulting helps your large clients stay up-to-date with their SPDs and ensure that their employees are receiving current and accurate information.

RT Consulting’s automated solutions increase accuracy, consistency, and efficiency of SPD production and distribution to make sure all documents remain in-compliance.

  • A secure, collaborative environment supporting cooperation among internal and external stakeholders

  • Built-in workflow, enabling simultaneous or sequential reviews, edits and approvals for your clients

  • An audit trail of changes, maintaining version control for your clients

  • A central repository for your clients’ summary plan descriptions and related collateral, such as plan documents, older versions of SPDs, enrollment materials, certificates, and summaries of material modification

Creation

RT Consulting provides automated solutions for your clients to update information to adhere to new regulations or provide new plans options. Our benefits communications expertise helps create content that is in-compliance and easy-to-understand. We review all SPDs to ensure they follow regulatory requirements and amend content as needed.

It is important that all information remains consistent among various benefit plans. Our advanced software identifies “standard” and “variable” language, so content that is shared across multiple SPD documents can be updated once and changes will automatically take effect across the board.

Review and Document Management

The RT Consulting solution provides your clients with a centralized data center where they can easily access plan documents and view a document edit log. Our solution also allows your clients to grant users delegated access to various documents plus user-specific permissions regarding the updating or removal of documents.

Our solution allows your clients to easily keep track of documents throughout each stage of the review process and create automated reminders or status reports for the review team.

Key Benefits of Working with RT Consulting:

  • End-to-end solution for your clients for ERISA compliance, document creation and distribution

  • A single point of entry for your clients for plan design updates and benefit administration platform changes

  • Reduced your clients’ litigation risk

  • Clear and concise documents that accurately reflect your clients’ plans