Читать книгу Auditing Employee Benefit Plans - Josie Hammond - Страница 24

The types of welfare benefits provided have been described earlier. They cover a wide array of nonpension benefits. These plans can be separated by specific benefit type—one plan provides healthcare coverage, one plan provides disability coverage, one provides death benefits, and so on. More and more, however, employers are adopting umbrella plans. These are arrangements within which a single plan the employer provides an array of welfare benefits. Auditing such plans presents unique issues to the auditor because these umbrella plans frequently include fully insured options that would not otherwise be subject to audit but for their inclusion in an umbrella plan.

Welfare benefit plans can be separated into the categories of defined benefit and defined contribution, just like pension plans. It is most common to see defined benefit welfare plans. The plan promises to provide a certain benefit, like health coverage. Plan assets, if any, are commingled for the plan as a whole. Typically, there are no separate accounts by participants. More recently, a trend has emerged of defined contribution welfare plans in which individual participant accounts are maintained and participant benefits are limited to what is in their account. The most typical of such arrangements are medical flexible spending accounts, medical reimbursement accounts, or health savings accounts.