Last week, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) published the results of a study that evaluated quality of benefit plan audits. Summit designed, selected, and analyzed the statistical sample of benefit plan audits at the center of this report.
DOL’s Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) is charged with enforcing the provisions of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA). The employee benefit plans subject to ERISA may also be subject to audits to ensure that they are meeting standards of conduct and reporting.
Summit’s sample and analysis sought to identify key information that might signal low- or high-quality audits, so that EBSA may better allocate its limited resources to target plan auditors who don’t fully comply with ERISA. The findings show a large number—in the multi-millions—of plan assets and participants may be at risk due to low audit quality.
Further information on this project can be found in our Case Study section. The study findings can be found on the DOL website.