Employee Benefits
Correctly designed and administered
Group health plans and retirement plans should be a valued benefit, not a source of anxiety. Whatever plan you choose to offer, the Lewis Law Office works through the details to help employers achieve legal compliance.
Meet your employee health care and retirement needs with cutting-edge options and solutions. The Lewis Law Office helps you take full advantage of the best emerging approaches to health care funding and post-employment planning.
Health Plans
The Lewis Law Office helps public and private employers and entities in all areas of health care plans including:
- ERISA and non-ERISA group health and welfare plans
- Cooperative and association plans/MEWA/VEBA/QSEHRA
- On Site Clinics/Narrow Network provider agreements/Telemedicine
- HRA/HSA/Flex/Section 125
- COBRA/HIPAA/Affordable Care Act/Medicare Secondary Payer Rules
Representative work includes:
- Plan design, plan document review and drafting, tax qualification and legal compliance
- External self funded plan administration and recordkeeping including Form 5500 reporting.
- Stop loss and plan vendor requests for proposals
- Plan audits
- Fiduciary services for self funded plans
Retirement Plans
The Lewis Law Office helps public and private employers and entities navigate a wide range of retirement plans including:
- 401(k) and Profit-Sharing/403(b)/457(b) and (f)/401(a) and (h)/ Cash Balance
- Defined Benefit/Taft Hartley Plan Withdrawal Liability
- Retiree Medical Plans
- Funding/Trust/Section 115 trust
- Multiple Employer Plans
- International controlled group plans
- Fiduciary obligations/Retirement Plan Oversight Committee counsel
- Plan design/document drafting, modifications and updates/reporting/communications
- Emerging Entity and Alternative Plans
Fringe Benefits
- Student Loan Repayment/Educational Assistance
- Cafeteria Plans
- Achievement Awards
- Health Savings Accounts
- Transportation Benefit
FAQs
Who is the Plan fiduciary for our self-funded health plan?
The plan sponsor, who is the employer in most instances, is the plan fiduciary for a self-funded plan.
I own an emerging business with 20 employees. Can I help employees pay for health insurance without purchasing a group health plan?
Yes. Employers with fewer than 50 full-time or full-time equivalent employees can offer a Qualified Small Employer Health Reimbursement Arrangement (QSEHRA). A QSEHRA allows qualifying small employers to reimburse employees for many medical expenses on a tax free basis without offering a group health plan.
We would like to outsource plan administration and fiduciary oversight for our self- funded group health plan. What is involved?
Lewis Law Office will establish and implement your third party record keeping function, administer the plan according to the plan document and provide bonded fiduciary oversight of plan and stop loss coverage.
We are a consortium of separately owned companies. Can we offer one retirement plan to all employees?
Yes. Multiple employer plans, or MEPs, make it possible for a group of unrelated employers to cooperatively offer one retirement plan when certain conditions are met.
When we outsource our plan’s investment management, is the outside investment manager our plan fiduciary?
Only if the investment manager administrative services agreement says so. Investment managers are not fiduciaries for institutional or entity investors by operation of law. Registered investment managers are fiduciaries for certain purposes but many plan vendor contracts specifically disclaim fiduciary status.
Are all 403(b) contributions tax-exempt?
Employer 403(b) contributions are tax-exempt but employee contributions that are considered employer contributions under a salary reduction agreement are subject to FICA tax at contribution.
Can I make contributions to a highly compensated employee’s Retiree Health Reimbursement Arrangement (HRA) account after her 403(b) annual limits have been met?
Employers cannot make individualized unique contributions to an earmarked Retiree HRA account.