Dollar Amounts & Participants: We have occasionally found dollar amounts reported to be higher when compared to the number of participants covered than they should be (for example 90 people covered with a dollar amount of $44 million) and vice versa. This is usually due to errors in the Department of Labor electronic scanning system. We have adjusted these values to more accurately reflect the dollar and participant amounts in each plan.

Large Retirement Associations: Large associations with multiple member plans such as NADART (the National Automobile Dealers Association Retirement Trust) have been left out. The independent filers of these and similar trusts are distributed identical schedule As that reflect data for the entire trust.

Broker names and names of carriers: The DOL scans in the data and often it is unintelligible or difficult to discern. We assembled a team of researchers to clean up this data, and eliminated many errors and elements that were illegible.

Policies with Zero Participants: Many of the policies listed in the BCMS are for direct filing entities (DFEs) and master trusts. These will generally list participant counts as zero. The number of participants per contract is taken from Schedule A. If a participant count is given as zero, you may, in certain cases, view item 7 of the form 5500 to obtain actual participant counts.

A special word about broker names: The Schedule A of the form 5500 allows only one line and 35 characters for the broker name. There is no room to put an individual's name as well as a company name, so the brokers tend to fall into two categories: those with individual names such as Robert J. Brown and those with company names such as Torrey & Clark Insurance Agency. Wherever possible, we have attempted to match broker agents to the firms for which they work. All names were sent through the National Change of Address System to ensure accuracy and standardization of the addresses. Those with company names have been scrubbed to the best of our ability through matching with a large commercial database as well as through personal phone calls. We continue to research and correct these names. Because the information is in an online database, we are able to provide updates and corrections on a continuing basis.

Note:
Although most broker names and addresses have been cleaned up to the best of our ability, we have provided brokers with a screen to update their address information. If you are a broker and you wish to update your address, click here.