To help members reduce their costs, the Associations are providing complimentary services such as Section 125 Plans and Summary Plan Descriptions (SPD) documents to all dues paying members in good standing.

The adoption agreements are now compliant documents reflecting ALL the Health Care Reform Law changes as of January 2013. These documents are FREE to our members…Effective 5/1/12, the cost to non-members is $50 each.

New Summary of Benefits Coverage (SBC) Option:

• Simply send us your clients SBC and MBPA will make a combined SPD/SBC customized document available to all Association Members who have BCBSM insurance through MBPA or MFBA.   
• MBPA will create a combined document in its original DOL mandated form with no alterations, as permitted pursuant to the DOL final regulations.
• MBPA will issue this combined document with a letter containing clear disclaimers about differences in distribution requirements for SBC’s and SPD’s, consulting their own legal counsel, etc…

NEW Material Modification Sheet Available:

• Now Available for Summary Plan Description by request.   Please contact the Membership Service Team at 888-277-6464 or info@michbusiness.org

What’s Different about MBPA/MFBA’s Summary Plan Description (SPD)?

The Employer Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) guidelines make it mandatory for all businesses with 2 or more employees to provide employees with a Summary Plan Description (SPD). We continue to take a leading role in informing and helping our members meet their obligations under ERISA.

Types of benefits covered by Summary Plan Descriptions include: Medical, Long Term Disability, Short Term Disability, Life/AD&D and freestanding Dental/Vision.

• The MBPA SPD is a comprehensive document that satisfies the all Department of Labor (DOL) requirements for SPDs.
• The MBPA SPD can be tailored to cover all of an employer’s employee benefit plans, and is not limited to only insured medical or medical/vision bundled programs. 
• The MBPA is essentially a “wrap plan SPD” under which an employer can combine all of its benefits into one plan and one plan document for ease of administration and for purposes of DOL reporting requirements (e.g. Form 5500s) for those employers subject to such reporting.
• The MBPA SPD can be used for both insured and self-insured benefits.

Section 125 Document:

The Section 125 Plan has a separate adoption agreement from the Benefits Wrap SPD adoption agreement. The Benefits SPD adoption agreement is one compliant document rather than creating 5 different forms for different types of plans.

For Section 125s: 1) Download the adoption agreement from our Agent Pavilion; 2) complete it IN WORD FORMAT and return it to us at info@michbusiness.org with your complete contact information, 3) we will complete the materials and return them to you within two working days.

NOW, Two Easy Ways to Get Your Client’s SPD for Active Members:

1) Let Us Do It For You:

• Access an SPD adoption agreement from our Agent Pavilion
• Complete it and e-mail it back to us IN WORD FORMAT at info@michbusiness.org, being sure to provide your complete contact information
• We complete and return the documents within two working days.

2) Create Your Own On-Line (NEW):

• Go to our Agent Pavilion and click on Summary Plan Description on the main menu.
• Follow the instructions to create your client’s plan…..you can save it in your client’s ‘library’ for their/your future use.

We look forward to continuing to provide you and your clients with the most up to date and easily accessible services in this important area.

If you have questions or are in need of assistance, please contact our Member Services Team at 1-888-277-6464 or 1-586-393-8800.