A participant's paper request survives digital delivery

When communications move to a digital default, the question plan administrators hear is whether participants can still get paper copies. In guidance published in PLANSPONSOR's Ask the Experts series, Groom Law attorneys Kimberly Boberg, Kelly Geloneck, Emily Gerard, and David Levine answer that the right is longstanding, a paper override built into the electronic-delivery mailbox.

The right covers any document furnished electronically — quarterly benefit statements, summary plan descriptions, and safe harbor notices among the examples — and nothing in the guidance ties it to a particular disclosure, so the phrase "any document" gives sponsors the broad reading.

An employer that qualifies for an exemption from the annual paper statement requirement does not lose the participant's paper right, according to the attorneys; the exemption reduces a standing mailing obligation without canceling a participant's ability to ask for an individual document in print.

The distinction has a dollar sign attached: a plan operating under the electronic default saves on postage and paper, but it has to stay able to honor a physical request whenever one arrives. The most practical reading for recordkeepers and sponsors is to keep a print-and-mail capability in place, even when it operates only on exception.

The guidance joins a steady run of administrative notes from Groom: last month this publication reported on the firm's conclusion that mandatory contributions count against the Section 415 annual additions cap, a determination that changes how plans track annual additions. The electronic-delivery item is smaller in scale, but it touches more documents in a typical plan year than any Section 415 calculation.

For an administration team, the Section 415 issue arises on a schedule, while a participant's request for paper can arrive on any business day. A plan that has automated its mailings should not assume it has automated away the envelope.