Managing employee benefit plans seems to keep getting more and more complicated every year. Fiduciary duties remain opaque and retirement plans and benefits have morphed over time. One of the more confusing processes for the third-party administrator or pension professional, however, is the ERISA bonding process.
Everyone required to be bonded must be bonded in an amount equal to at least 10% of the amount of funds handled in the previous year. The minimum bond amount is $1,000. A fidelity bond can be purchased for more than the legally required minimum.
This can be hard to manage, especially when plan assets need to be looked at each year in order to make sure that the plan is bonded. When you manage many different plans, this can be difficult, as can making sure that every single plan meets every ERISA related requirement.
Colonial Surety is here to simplify the ERISA bonding process with the Partnership Account®. The Partnership Account® is a business arrangement between third party administrators and Colonial Surety that simplifies the ERISA bonding process. It can help increase productivity for partners while lowering costs for their plan sponsors.
Partnering with Colonial provides you access to a powerful client management dashboard, the Pension Professional Dashboard, that provides real-time information and enables you to instantly purchase or renew a client’s ERISA bond, view renewal history, and much more online. These free management tools allow our partners to become more efficient to work smarter, not harder. You also gain access to the Bond Compliance Program, our free service that saves third-party administrators the time associated with confirming and verifying ERISA bond coverage when filing the 5500. Our proprietary software identifies your plan sponsors who are not properly bonded or do not currently possess an ERISA bond. You can even purchase a bond for your client retroactive to ensure Department of Labor (DOL) compliance and avoid costly fines.
Colonial also offers management tools, financial incentives for referrals, built-in cost savings for your clients, fast online quoting and purchase, and retroactive coverage for past years the plan was not adequately covered by an ERISA fidelity bond.
Colonial Surety Company is a Treasury Listed surety company providing Department of Labor compliant ERISA fidelity bonds. Pension Professionals can enroll in The Partnership Account® for Pension Professionals. The Partnership Account is a business arrangement between third party administrators and Colonial Surety that simplifies the ERISA bonding process. It can help increase productivity for partners while lowering costs for their plan sponsors.
Pension professionals partner with Colonial Surety to consolidate their plan sponsors’ ERISA bonds into one location and ensure they are United States Department of Labor compliant. Colonial is rated “A” Excellent by A.M. Best Company and is a long tenured member of ASPPA and NIPA.
Click here to learn how to become a Pension Professional Partner.
If you would like to learn more about purchasing an ERISA fidelity bond, or an ERISA fidelity bond package including fiduciary liability insurance and an included cyber liability insurance endorsement, click here.