Things to Know Regarding the 401K Fidelity Bond

It was in the year 1974 that the ERISA or the Employee Retirement Income Security Act was actually enacted to regulate various types of benefit plans for the employees. The ERISA section 412 as well as the regulated regulations demand that each fiduciary of an employee benefit plan and also every individual who deals with funds or the other property of such plan has to be bonded.

The bonding requirements of the ERISA are needed to protect the benefit plans from risk of such loss as a result of fraud or dishonesty of the people who handle those funds or any other property. The persons who would handle the funds or property of an employee benefit plan are known as plan officials in the ERISA. The Act certainly demands that there should be fidelity bond that must be placed to be able to cover the fiduciary or the ones responsible when it comes to managing the plan and the people who are going to handle the property of the plan and the funds. These fidelity bonds are meant for protecting the plans from fraud or dishonesty committed by the persons who are linked to them.

It is required that the plan official be bonded for at least ten percent of the amount of funds that one handles. In a lot of cases, the largest bond amount which can be demanded under ERISA with respect to a plan official is $500,000 for each plan. But, there are higher limits that may be purchased. But for the plan officials who are holding such employer securities, then the largest bond amount offered is $1,000,000.

Know that those employee benefit plans with more than 5 percent of those non-qualifying plan assets that are actually held in those limited partnerships, the real estate, collectibles, securities and mortgages of such closely-held companies and they are being held outside those regulated institutions such as the insurance company, broker-dealer, bank or other organizations which are authorized to function as trustee for the individual accounts for retirement, plan sponsors must do one of which. One needs to make sure that the bond amount is 100 percent of value of those non-qualifying assets or one can also arrange for such annual full-scope audit in which the CPA is going to physically confirm the existence of those assets at the start and the end of that plan year.

401K has worked together with Colonial Surety Company that is recognized as a leader in 401K fidelity bonds or ERISA fidelity bonds. They are actually a national insurance company which is licensed in all fifty states and also territories of the US and they have been providing insurance products since 1930. They are surely the biggest direct seller of such fidelity bonds in the US.