ERISA fiduciaries are well advised to follow a comprehensive strategy to optimize fiduciary risk mitigation. Other important risk mitigation steps include identifying who the plan’s named fiduciary is, delegating fiduciary responsibilities to co-fiduciaries (e.g., steering committee) as appropriate and allowable, implementing a sound fiduciary structure (via committee charter with ancillary paperwork), consistently practicing procedural prudence as defined by ERISA for all fiduciary-level plan decision making, hiring experts as needed to fulfill ERISA’s prudent expert requirement, documenting all fiduciary decision-making processes and results, and auditing administrative procedures periodically to ensure compliance with ERISA and the plan document (this is a source of many unintentional fiduciary breaches). Ask your plan consultant to provide a more complete explanation of this important topic.
Returning to the specific topic of fiduciary insurance, please note that typically, most corporate-level liability insurance policies (directors and officers liability insurance (D&O), employee benefit liability coverage) do not address ERISA fiduciary breaches. If ERISA-specific language is not included in a liability policy, ERISA breaches are most likely not covered. Comprehensive fiduciary insurance is relatively affordable and typically does cover all plan fiduciaries. ERISA fiduciary coverage can be obtained as an addendum to an existing liability policy, or as a separate policy, depending upon the issuer.
Not all fiduciary liability policies are created equal, and some issuers are more astute about this coverage than others. It is prudent to confirm that the issuer you are considering to provide coverage has experience and expertise in providing ERISA fiduciary coverage. A few areas to focus on, other than what would normally be considered in reviewing any insurance policy, are:
•Does the policy specifically cover ERISA fiduciary breaches?
•Does it cover the appropriate individuals?
•Does the policy contain carve-out language that eviscerates the effectiveness of the policy?
Do review all language contained in the contract, especially in areas of coverage exclusions and limitations, provisions for legal representation in event of a claim, and specific and aggregate dollar limits of coverage.
Another important area of concern in terms of policy language is the application for coverage. As with most insurance contracts, the signed application for coverage is considered part of the contract. We have noticed many applications that ask the fiduciaries to affirm that there has never been a fiduciary breach associated with the plan. In our opinion, this is an affirmation that is not practicable to assert, as many unintentional fiduciary breaches (by far the most frequent category of breaches) may not be identified upon occurrence or until years after its occurrence. The affirmation can and may be used to nullify the insurance protection at time of a claim. It would be prudent to have the issuer insert, “to the best of my knowledge” language to this question. We believe that this is typically not an intentional attempt by the issuer to avoid a claim, but is often due to the issuer’s naivety concerning ERISA law.
To summarize, here are some steps you might follow in evaluating ERISA fiduciary insurance:
1.Check any existing corporate liability policies to determine if they cover ERISA fiduciaries (it may be more efficient to ask your broker to show you where in a policy it identifies that ERISA fiduciaries are covered).
2.If the policy does not cover ERISA fiduciaries, ask your broker to provide you with a quote for ERISA fiduciary insurance from a company that has expertise and experience in this area.
3.Keep in mind the specific provision areas of focus identified above (paragraphs four and five).
4.The amount of coverage is a judgement call. To our knowledge, there has not been an award that has approached 10 percent of plan assets, but it is theoretically conceivable that one could. Most successful litigation to date (other than those involving company stock litigation) is based on unreasonableness of fees, and fees are a relatively small percentage of total plan assets. Lawsuits can, and often do, contemplate a prolonged period of time based on when a breach originated and when it is corrected.
5.Designating a beneficiary will depend on whether there is a committee charter in place, which we highly recommend for most plans. If there is a formally executed committee charter delegating fiduciary responsibility from a plan’s named fiduciary (e.g., the company) to a committee, and the committee members are indemnified by the company, the beneficiary is most commonly the company. If committee members have not been indemnified, then the committee members themselves (along with any other fiduciary members) should be named as beneficiaries as they would be held personally liable for fiduciary breaches in areas they are responsible for