What is Summary Plan Description ?
‘Summary Plan Description’ refers to the documented tenets of the predefined benefits plan that the employee is provided with, by the employer. It includes all aspects of the benefits plan including the eligibility criteria, the extent of the cover provided as well as the calculation of the payouts.
Employers are supposed to provide the summary plan description within 90 days of the policy being taken, as per the rules of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 by the Department of Labor, USA.
It also mandates that the document should be easily understandable and accessible for the layman. Hence, it is documented in the layman language instead of the insurance document jargon filled prose used normally.