A helpful change to Ontario pension law has come into effect, coincident with the arrival of patio season. It is a refreshing tonic that will help administrators deal with pension plan members who are difficult to locate.

Until now, the obligation to send pension statements to former and retired plan members has been an absolute legal requirement. The fact that an administrator did not have correct (or any) address information, did not relieve the administrator from the legal obligation to send pension statements.  That has changed.

The Ontario Superintendent of Financial Services now has the authority to waive the administrator’s legal obligation to provide a pension statement that would otherwise have to be sent to an unlocatable member.  This is not automatic.  The administrator has to write to the Superintendent and demonstrate that the inactive member should be considered “missing”.

A message to pension plan administrators: please take this seriously.  Do not assume that there will be no repercussions if you simply don’t send statements to unlocatable members.  Have any of the biennial statements sent out this spring to former and retired members been returned to sender?  Find out who those people are, and write to the Superintendent now to request that he waive the pension statement obligation for those individuals.  Doing so will demonstrate that you understand and care about compliance with Ontario pension law.

This welcome change to Ontario pension law does not solve the problem of what to do with the payments owed to unlocatable members.  The Ontario government has promised to address that challenge.  In its April 2017 Budget the government stated that it was considering initiatives such as the possible establishment of a public registry where employers or administrators could post information regarding missing beneficiaries and individuals could search for missing benefits.  There may be more good news on this front in the coming months.

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