Notice Delivery Protection.

All employees will receive an initial electronic delivery opt-in notice via paper mail from Human Interest. This notice advises employees that they have been opted-in to electronic communications and how to opt out if they prefer paper copies. Human Interest will then deliver legally required notices and disclosures via paper mail if employees meet the following criteria:

• Opt-out: The employee opted out of electronic communication after receiving the electronic delivery opt-in notice by following the instructions in the opt-in notice.

• Missing email address: The employee does not have an email address in our system. (Note: we rely on the plan sponsor to provide accurate email addresses for every employee.)

• Invalid email address: An email we sent to an employee who has not opted out was undeliverable or unsuccessful (as indicated to Human Interest by a “bounce back” notice from our email platform).

If documents and notices are not distributed timely, penalties may accrue. Penalties vary based on the type of document or notice that was not distributed. For example, costs in 2024 for a late blackout notice can be as much as $169 per participant per day.

If this happens, we will send you an alert and provide guidance on getting (and keeping) your plan below the 20% threshold. The best way to do this is to provide email addresses for employees with missing or inaccurate emails. 

If you are unable to get your plan below the 20% threshold within 15 business days after we send you the alert, or if your plan violates the threshold more than two times in a plan year, you will lose access to Notice Delivery Protection.  At that point, you will have two options:

1. You can take on the responsibility of delivering paper copies of legally required notices to employees on the opt-out and undeliverable list. We make this easy for you by providing a bulk list of notices to be delivered via your Admin Dashboard. Each mailing will include a cover page with the employee's address.

2. You can pay an additional $2 per eligible employee for our Full-Service Paper Mail Add-On feature, which gives you 100% coverage of all required notices and disclosures. If you are interested in this feature, please Contact Customer Support.

Note: For Concierge customers, we will continue to deliver the initial electronic communication notice to all new employees via paper mail, even if you exceed the 20% threshold and lose the Notice Delivery Protection coverage for legally required notices and disclosures.

Human Interest helps you in two ways:

1. Our Onboarding and Customer Support teams will help you identify missing employee information, including email, SSN, and date of birth. This is an important part of keeping your 401(k) plan compliant. 

2. Our Employee Data Alerts feature will automatically alert you if an employee has a missing or incorrect email address and provide guidance on correcting this with your payroll provider so that the data seamlessly syncs to Human Interest.

You can pay an additional $2 per eligible employee for our Full-Service Paper Mail Add-On feature, which gives you 100% coverage of all required notices and disclosures. If you are interested in this feature, please Contact Customer Support.

We deliver the following notices for customers with Notice Delivery Protection or our Full-Service Paper Mail Add-On:

1. Electronic delivery opt-in

2. Enrollment information

3. Automatic enrollment notice

4. Safe Harbor notice

5. Summary plan description (“SPD”)

6. Summary of material modifications (“SMM”)

7. Participant Fee disclosure

8. Blackout notice

9. Qualified Default Investment Alternative (QDIA) notice

10. Plan termination notice

11. Fund menu changes

12. Summary of the plan’s annual financial report (“SAR”)

13. Quarterly benefit statements

We will notify you of undeliverable paper mail, for instance, if the physical address you provided is missing or invalid.  If this happens, you will be required to deliver the notice to the employee.

As the Plan Sponsor, you are responsible for ensuring your employees receive important notifications.  Human Interest takes much of this off your hands with Notice Delivery Protection, but if paper mail notices are undeliverable, it is ultimately the plan sponsor’s responsibility to deliver the required notices.