About ERISA

The Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) is a federal law that establishes legal guidelines for private pension and employee benefit plans. ERISA requires plans to provide participants with specific information about plan features and funding and establishes certain fiduciary responsibilities for those who manage the plan.

Administrators of an ERISA plan have certain legal obligations to employees who participate in a plan. They must act in the interests of the enrolled employees, for the exclusive purpose of furnishing benefits. As fiduciaries of the plan they must perform their functions in a prudent and careful manner, take appropriate steps to diversify any plan investments, and must comply with any written documents that govern the particular plan.

About the summary plan description

One of the documents participants are entitled to receive automatically when becoming a participant of an ERISA-covered retirement plan or a beneficiary receiving benefits under such a plan, is a summary of the plan, called the summary plan description or SPD. The plan administrator is legally obligated to provide the SPD to participants.

The summary plan description tells participants, in basic terms, what the plan provides and how it operates. For example it explains things like when an employee can begin to participate in the plan, when benefits become vested, how long participants can be away from their jobs before it might affect their benefits, and whether their spouses have rights to part of their pensions in the event of their deaths.

If a plan is modified, participants must be informed, either through a revised summary plan description, or in a separate document, called a summary of material modifications. TIAA-CREF can work with you to meet these requirements.

About the summary annual report

Each year, the plan administrator must automatically give participants a copy of the plan's summary annual report. This is a summary of the annual report that plans file with the Department of Labor. These reports are filed on government forms called the Form 5500. The form must be filed and the summary annual report delivered to participants subject to specific deadlines.

ERISA was created to protect the interests of employees and their beneficiaries (such as spouses and children) who are enrolled in pension plans. ERISA requires participants periodically receive certain specified disclosures and reports and establishes the obligations and responsibilities of the "fiduciaries" that administer the plans.

In addition to receiving the Summary Plan Description and Summary Annual Report, participants and their beneficiaries have a right to take action in federal court if an administrator of a plan breaches fiduciary responsibility.