Welfare plans exempt from pension participation standards

P/OPINION 76-02


                                                  3(1) ✓
                                                   201

                    February 27, 1976



Dear     :

This is in reply to your letter dated November 25, 1975,
requesting a clarification of the participation require-
ments under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act
of 1974 (ERISA) for your group health, life and disability
insurance plans.

Section 3(1) defines an "employee welfare benefit plan"
as "any plan, fund, or program which was heretofore or is
hereafter established or maintained by an employer or by
an employee organization, or by both, to the extent that
such plan, fund, or program was established or is maintained
for the purpose of providing for its participants or their
beneficiaries, through the purchase of insurance or otherwise,
(A) medical, surgical, or hospital care or benefits in the
event of sickness, accident, disability, death or unemployment,
or vacation benefits, apprenticeship or other training programs,
or day care centers, scholarship funds, or prepaid legal
services, or (B) any benefit described in section 302(c) of
the labor Management Relations Act, 1947 (other than pensions
on retirement or death, and insurance to provide such pensions)."
Since the plans you describe provide group health, life
and disability insurance, they would be classified as
employee welfare benefit plans under the ERISA.

The participation standards to which you refer are cited
in Part 2 of Title I, Participation and Vesting. However,
section 201(1) states that this part shall not apply to an
employee welfare benefit plan. Your group health, life
and disability insurance plans, therefore, need not comply
with the participation standards in Part 2 of Title I of
the ERISA.

Sincerely,