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Safe Harbor Electronic Communications See our Product Sheet for more information. How much money is your plan wasting on unnecessary paper communications? Prior to 2002, multiemployer plans were not able to take advantage of the proposed safe harbor for electronic communications. The proposed rules required that employees be able to access and print plan communications at their workplace and at the employer's expense. In 2002, the final rules afforded multiemployer plans an extension to this safe harbor which in short, allows any participant with internet access to opt-in. (IRS regulations issued in July, 2005 provide guidance on the use of electronic media to provide notices, elections, and consents between employee benefit plans and participants. These rules will augment the DOL's 2002 rules with applicability to areas over which the DOL or PBGC do not have regulatory authority. Such areas include eligible rollover notices, consent for lump sums exceeding $5,000, qualified joint and survivor annuity explanations/elections/waivers [including the new relative value disclosures], and 204(h) notices addressing significant reductions in the rate of future benefit accruals.) Add up your plan's printing and postage budget. Be sure to include an annual rate for SPDs, Newsletters, SARs, EOBs, COBRA Notices, and all other printed communications. Now for a rough estimate of how much money your plan is leaving on the table, assume 10% of participants opt-in in the first year, another 10% in the second, and so on until you reach an assumed maximum participation rate. Wow! Every month you delay means more money unnecessarily spent. With a web site, the plan makes available plan information to participants on a 24/7 basis. But, this does not satisfy the requirements for safe harbor communications. The safe harbor requires in addition to the "opt-in" a reasonable assurance that the participant actually has received the communication. We call this a "push" method, as opposed to the "pull" method a participant uses when they access the plan's web site on their own initiative. This product has two levels of implementation. The first is for general plan communications, and has low security requirements. The second is for personal information and has the same high security and confidentiality requirements as any participant self-service application. Level I -- General Plan Information
Level II -- Personal Plan Communications
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