Plan Hygiene
Strengthen Your Plan Data
A Strategic Path to Strengthen Plan Data
Plan Hygiene is a service designed for organizations looking to strengthen the long-term reliability of their plan data to better manage plan costs and be prepared for what’s next.
The Hidden Costs of Poor Data Quality
Many plans contain records with outdated information or unresolved issues, which can lead to unnecessary costs and headaches, such as:
- Overpaying a deceased participant
- Paying higher benefit amounts at late retirement
- Not being ready to de-risk the plan at the opportune time
- Paying a premium to annuity providers for incomplete data
With October Three’s Plan Hygiene service, we cover the heavy lifting, saving you and your team valuable time and effort throughout the entire process. As seasoned experts, our team will handle everything from extracting data from paper files onsite to data accuracy checks.
What Plan Hygiene Includes
Our plan hygiene service contains three different strategies to reinforce your data. They include:
Data Cleanup
Excellent for sponsors interested in pension risk transfer or plan termination, as data requirements for those processes are often more extensive than current plan administration and actuarial needs. We’ll review your data and fill in any holes, taking care of every detail for you and your team, while providing a staffer on-site to sort through physical files, so you don’t have to.
- Data extraction from paper files
- Joint annuitant searches
- Accrued benefit verification
- Accuracy checks
Death Audit
The Social Security Administration’s Death Master File provides organizations with only 23% of the deaths that take place. Our Death Audit service quickly identifies deaths for you using state-of-the-art systems and processes to search public records, obituaries, and social media. We will also handle the administrative work that results from the discovery of in-payment deaths.
- Death search
- Stop retiree payments
- Certified mailings to beneficiaries
- Survivor benefit processing
Address Search
If you are considering de-risking through an annuity purchase or lump-sum window, having the correct addresses will directly impact the success of those initiatives. We enlist our expert search firms to quickly locate and reconnect with plan participants to confirm their current addresses. This is a critical yet often overlooked step that can impede the plan termination process.
- Address audit
- Certified mailing to verify addresses
FAQ
What is the purpose of conducting plan hygiene for my company's pension plan participants?
+The goal is to ensure accurate participant information within your company’s pension plan to help maintain data integrity, prevent erroneous payments, and confirm compliance with legal and regulatory requirements.
Will this disrupt ongoing plan operations?
+No. We structure cleanup initiatives to minimize operational impact while prioritizing high-risk areas first.
What are the potential risks associated with inaccurate participant information in a pension plan?
+Outdated information can lead to financial risks, such as payments to deceased individuals or overpaying beneficiaries. It can also result in compliance issues, reputational damage, and legal liabilities. Plan hygiene mitigates these risks by ensuring accurate and up-to-date participant records.
How would the process benefit my company's pension plan administration?
+Some benefits of plan hygiene include improved accuracy of participant data, reduced financial risks, enhanced compliance with regulatory obligations, streamlined administration processes, and increased operational efficiency — contributing to the overall effectiveness and reliability of plan administration.
How can plan hygiene help our compliance efforts?
+It ensures compliance by identifying deceased participants, updating records, and adhering to reporting obligations. We stay on top of regulatory changes to help you maintain compliance.
Strengthen the Foundation of Your Plan
If you're planning a lump-sum window, preparing for a risk-transfer event, upgrading systems, or simply want greater confidence in your plan data, Plan Hygiene may be the right next step.
John can walk you through whether this add-on makes sense given your current engagement and long-term objectives.
