Keeping the Missing Participant Search Compliant

More than one year after the Department of Labor’s Employee Benefits Security Administration launched its public Retirement Savings Lost and Found database, plan sponsors still need to work just as hard to deliver participants their promised benefits at retirement age.

Created as part of the SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022, the DOL’s database serves as a centralized location for individuals or beneficiaries to search for lost or forgotten retirement accounts and receive guidance on how to claim their funds.

The DOL’s announcement in January that it would reduce its focus on enforcing rules governing how plans meet their fiduciary duties to missing participants—thanks to the database’s functionality—may have given some plan sponsors a sigh of relief.

“By recalibrating the areas our investigators focus on, EBSA investigations will be more efficient, responsive and prioritize serious misconduct rather than minor foot faults,” Deputy Secretary of Labor Keith Sonderling said in a statement.

But Lisa Gomez, head of EBSA under former President Joe Biden when the database launched, cautions that the database offers neither a one-and-done solution, nor an automatic fulfillment of a plan sponsor’s fiduciary duties.

“I don’t think we’re there yet,” Gomez says. “Plans should not discontinue the work they’ve been doing.”

Working off Guidance

In 2021, EBSA issued guidance to help retirement plan fiduciaries meet their obligations under Title I of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act to locate or distribute retirement benefits to missing or nonresponsive participants. In the guidance, the DOL indicated that plan sponsors should take the following steps to deal with the issue:

• Maintain accurate census information;
• Implement effective communication strategies;
• Conduct missing participant searches; and
• Document procedures and actions.

Heather Bader, a partner in the Los Angeles office of Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP, says that while the guidance—pure recommendation, by nature—did not require that plan sponsors detail their missing participant policies in writing, the DOL has, in the past, “come down heavy” on wanting to see something written. Bader’s advice to plan sponsors is to speak with their advisers and recordkeepers and to at least outline their policies.

The Retirement Clearinghouse LLC, a provider of portability and consolidation services for defined contribution plans, recommended three best practices for plan sponsors based on whether a participant is ahead, nearing or past a distribution event:

• Conduct a low-cost, automated yearly search if a participant is well in advance of a normal distribution event;
• Perform an automated search, along with outreach to the participant and verification of their address, if a participant is nearing a normal distribution event; and
• Intensify the search to a “forensic” one, utilizing a search specialist and additional search tools, if the distribution event already occurred.

“If the DOL investigates them, they have to show they’ve been taking appropriate action,” Bader says. “It’s better for plan sponsors to start looking now than in the midst of an investigation.”

What More Can Be Done?

In April 2024, the DOL issued an information collection request asking plan administrators to voluntarily turn over missing-participant information to enable the creation of the database, but Gomez says that step helped only so much.

“It’s always a difficult sell to [suggest] plans add something to their plate—from a work standpoint and a potential risk standpoint—if they don’t have to,” Gomez says. “A database is only as good as the information that is in it. It’s limited information in, limited information out.”

To help remedy the issue, Gomez recommends the DOL explore what more can be done to incentivize plan sponsors to share data. Contributing to the database is a win for plan sponsors, Gomez explains, as it is another “tool in their toolbox” to show the DOL they are trying to connect with participants in fulfillment of their fiduciary duties.

Gomez suggests that the DOL ask sponsors if they “need more assurances about how the data will be stored?” or have “privacy concerns? Cybersecurity concerns?”

In addition, Gomez encourages plan sponsors to come to the DOL with their ideas on how to improve the database, including what support plan sponsors might need to contribute to it.

“Bring your ideas and concerns” Gomez recommends. “Don’t think the DOL either thought of that already or doesn’t want to hear it.”

Can Automatic Portability Help?

Aside from adhering to the DOL’s guidance, Faegre Drinker’s Bader says she believes the automatic plan portability offered by the Portability Services Network LLC, which facilitates the transfer of small retirement account balances among six recordkeepers representing 63% of plan participants, will go a long way in helping solve the missing-participant issue.

The network, which went live in November 2023, uses its technology to automatically locate a participant’s retirement account in their former employer’s plan and transfer balances less than $7,000 into an active account, as permitted by a provision in the SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022.

Neal Ringquist, executive vice president and chief revenue officer at the Retirement Clearinghouse, which manages the Portability Services Network, says the company has completed 27,691 retirement account roll-ins, representing $7.2 million in assets, as of the end of January, up from 1,100 roll-ins at the end of 2024. As of September 30, 2025, nearly 21,000 plan sponsors had adopted PSN auto-portability.

Earlier this month, the Retirement Clearinghouse released a white paper advocating that a neutral, shared, digital clearinghouse—modeled on PSN’s—could reduce small balance cash-outs, shrink the number of stranded accounts and allow interoperability among all plan and IRA providers.

“A clearinghouse for the U.S. retirement system has become a practical necessity for a workforce defined by frequent job changes, fragmented accounts, and expanding policy initiatives,” the paper stated. “By standing as a neutral, unbiased digital utility between plans, providers, and public programs, the clearinghouse model demonstrates that shared infrastructure can systematically resolve problems that no single institution can address on its own, converting today’s patchwork of bespoke connections and paper-based processes into standardized, interoperable network services.”

More on this topic:

	What Does It Mean to Be a Fiduciary?
	How the 401(k) Alts Debate Raises Fiduciary Stakes
	How Does Outsourcing Affect Fiduciary Duties?