The Partnership Account® for Pension Professionals: 

Frequently Asked Questions

• What products do you have for plan sponsors?

  We offer ERISA fidelity bonds, fiduciary liability insurance, and cyber liability insurance. Our cyber liability insurance is currently only offered with our one, two or three year ERISA fidelity bond packages.

• Why should a plan sponsor purchase an ERISA fidelity bond package?

  Colonial Surety’s one, two and three year packages offer extended coverage and cyber liability insurance at no extra cost.

• Do you provide retroactive coverage for ERISA bonds?

  Yes. We make it easy to obtain ERISA fidelity bonds and even allow the purchase of retroactive coverage for previous years that a plan was not bonded.

• What is extended coverage?

  Extended coverage is protection we offer to our one, two and three year ERISA fidelity bonds, for qualifying assets only. It guarantees that as plan assets grow, your bond will grow to maintain your U.S. Department of Labor requirements.

• What is fiduciary liability insurance?

  Fiduciary liability insurance protects a plan sponsor’s personal assets due to an alleged breach of a fiduciary duty, such as imprudent plan investments or investments having excessively high fees.

• What is cyber liability insurance?

  Colonial’s cyber insurance provides a services-based solution to help plan sponsors manage data breaches successfully. These services include a dedicated team of cyber breach professionals who assist plan sponsors at every stage of incident investigation and breach response. These professionals coordinate the carefully vetted forensics experts and specialized lawyers to help plan sponsors establish what’s been compromised; assess plan sponsor responsibility; and, notify those individuals affected. In addition, these services will also coordinate credit or identity monitoring, and public relations advice to help the plan sponsor safeguard its reputation. Of course, Colonial’s cyber insurance also indemnifies and defends plan sponsors from covered lawsuits or regulatory actions, the risk of which may be reduced by a well-coordinated breach response, but can never be completely eliminated.

• What products do you have for pension professionals?

  We offer errors & omissions, fiduciary liability insurance, service provider bonds, cyber liability insurance, employment practices liability insurance (EPLI), and more, directly to our pension professional partners. Simply login and quote right from your dashboard.

• What is a service provider bond?

  Colonial Surety offers service provider bonds for pension professionals who take on 3(16) or 3(18) services. These bonds cover the plans in which a service provider has full discretionary authority over plan sponsor assets.

• What is the Colonial TPA promotional placements and why do I want to use it?

  The promotional placements will embed your referral code and allow you to view and manage your clients’ ERISA bonding status. They can be used on your website, on-boarding documents, and annual census. It lets your clients easily access the quote page and complete an application.

• Can I insert my referral link in the annual census?

  Yes. You can insert it into the bond section of the annual census. If a plan sponsor answers “no” to having a bond, they will be directed to click on Colonial’s link and obtain bond coverage immediately.

  Implementation of this process will help get all of your plan sponsors into bond compliance for the upcoming year, which means you’ll no longer need to track them down to obtain bond coverage during 5500 filing season—because they’ll already be bonded.

• Is there a financial incentive available for referrals?

  Pension professionals have the opportunity to earn advertising transaction revenue on referred purchases of ERISA fidelity bonds and bond packages with fiduciary liability insurance and cyber liability Insurance. Participation in this aspect of the program is optional

• What is the benefit of the bond compliance program?

  Colonial’s proprietary bond compliance program offers a simple solution for pension professional firms to confirm and verify bond compliance for all of their plan sponsor clients, Colonial and others. Our proprietary software generates a detailed report which includes whether a plan is bonded, not bonded, under-bonded, or over-bonded. Colonial will then work with your firm on the best approach to get all of your plan sponsors in compliance with the U.S. Department of Labor, while also providing cost savings on ERISA fidelity bonds.