PensionGuard — Retirement Plan Intelligence

The Data

One filing. Four scored models.

Every U.S. retirement plan of any size files a Form 5500 with the Department of Labor. Attached to it are the actuary's funding certifications and the plan's audited financial schedules. No federal system scores those filings for funding health and fiduciary compliance, or reconciles a plan's zone certification against the PBGC bailout roster. PensionGuard does the assembly.

The result: a tier for every plan — defined-benefit plans on their certified funded percentage, large and small plans on their fiduciary record — from the same primary sources a regulator reads.

Form 5500 — Annual Return/Report

The base filing every covered plan submits to the Department of Labor, IRS, and PBGC. Plan type, participant counts, funding and benefit arrangements, and the list of schedules attached. EIN and three-digit plan number as the plan-level key.

Federal

Schedule MB — Multiemployer Actuarial

Signed by the plan's enrolled actuary. Certified funded percentage (line 4a) and PPA zone status — critical, endangered, and so on (line 4b). The funding basis for every multiemployer defined-benefit plan.

Federal

Schedule SB — Single-Employer Actuarial

The Adjusted Funding Target Attainment Percentage (AFTAP) and funding-target detail behind ERISA §436 — the statutory lines that restrict or freeze benefit accruals as a corporate plan's funding falls.

Federal

Schedule H — Large-Plan Financial

The independent auditor's opinion and the schedule of delinquent participant contributions. The fiduciary-compliance basis for plans above the audit threshold — with limited-scope elections separated from genuine adverse and disclaimer opinions.

Federal

Form 5500-SF — Small-Plan Short Form

The condensed filing for smaller, audit-exempt plans — the long tail of the private retirement system. Delinquent-contribution and reported-loss disclosures that survive at that scale, scored on a three-tier basis.

Federal

PBGC Special Financial Assistance Roster

The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation's public, weekly-updated record of multiemployer bailout applications and approvals. Matched to each plan by EIN and plan number to separate rescued plans from those still declining.

Federal

Intelligence Signals

What the scored federal record reveals.

Certified Funded Percentage

The actuary's own number

Every defined-benefit plan's funded percentage comes straight off the enrolled actuary's certification — Schedule MB line 4a for multiemployer plans, the AFTAP on Schedule SB for single-employer. Not an estimate, not a market proxy: the figure the plan filed with the government.

Schedule MB 4a · Schedule SB AFTAP

Zone Status vs. Funding

"Critical" no longer means distressed

A plan's PPA zone code and its funded percentage are separate lines on the form. After the federal rescue, "critical" plans range from 34% funded to over 100%. PensionGuard carries both, so the certification is never mistaken for the funding reality.

Schedule MB 4a × 4b

SFA Rescue Status

Rescued, pending, or never applied

The PBGC Special Financial Assistance roster, matched plan-by-plan, separates multiemployer plans stabilized through 2051 from those still declining. Among critical-and-declining plans, 94% of participants are federally rescued — a distinction the zone code alone hides.

PBGC SFA Roster · EIN + PN match

Benefit-Accrual Freezes

Where the law has already acted

ERISA §436 freezes benefit accruals when a single-employer plan falls below 60% funded. PensionGuard flags the 306 plans currently below that statutory line — a bright-line federal fact, not an interpretation.

Schedule SB · ERISA §436

Auditor Opinion

Adverse, disclaimer, or clean

Large plans attach an independent auditor's opinion. PensionGuard separates routine limited-scope elections — which most disclaimers are — from genuine adverse and disclaimer opinions, so a standard election is never scored as distress.

Schedule H · Auditor's Report

Delinquent Contributions

Late employee money, as disclosed

Plans self-report participant contributions remitted late on Schedule H line 4a. PensionGuard treats these as a fiduciary-timing signal — disclosed as gross amounts as filed, because correction status lives in attachment schedules, not the structured data.

Schedule H 4a · Form 5500-SF

Single vs. Multiemployer

Two funding regimes, scored apart

Corporate single-employer plans run on §436 AFTAP bands; jointly-trusteed multiemployer plans run on PPA zone certification and the PBGC backstop. PensionGuard scores each on its own regime rather than forcing one rule across both.

Schedule SB · Schedule MB

The Small-Plan Tail

Where the audit ends

863,724 plans file the short-form 5500-SF and are audit-exempt — no opinion axis exists. PensionGuard scores them on a three-tier basis from the compliance signals that survive, rather than pretending an opinion is there.

Form 5500-SF · 3-tier

Source Reconciliation

Every score ties to a raw line

Before any tier is published, the scored table is reconciled against the raw federal source table it was built from. A funded percentage traces to Schedule MB; a rescue status traces to the PBGC roster — filing to filing, no black box.

Form 5500 · PBGC · Reconciled

Four Models

Two questions, asked of every plan.

Is the plan funded, and is it being run properly? Funding health is measured on the actuary's own certifications; fiduciary compliance on the plan's audited financial schedule. A plan can be scored on one axis or both — and plans that file both a funding and a fiduciary schedule appear in two models by design.

Funding · Single-Employer DB

42,142 plans

Corporate defined-benefit plans, scored on the AFTAP certified under ERISA §436. 306 sit below the 60% line where federal law freezes benefit accruals.

Funding · Multiemployer DB

1,200 plans

Jointly-trusteed plans, scored on PPA zone status and cross-referenced against the PBGC bailout roster. Among critical-and-declining plans, 94% of participants are federally rescued.

Fiduciary · Large + Small

946,076 plans

82,352 large plans on Schedule H (auditor opinion, delinquent contributions) and 863,724 small plans on the audit-exempt 5500-SF, scored three-tier.

The Score

One vocabulary. Two bases.

PensionGuard places every plan on the same four-tier scale AuditPoint uses for Banks and Credit Unions — so a risk team reads a pension the way it reads a bank. The basis differs by model: certified funded percentage for defined-benefit plans, fiduciary-compliance signals for the audited financial schedules.

Defined-benefit tiers follow the statutory funding lines — ERISA §436 for single-employer plans, PPA zone status cross-referenced with the PBGC roster for multiemployer. Fiduciary tiers follow the auditor's opinion and delinquent-contribution record.

Strong

Well funded, or a clean fiduciary record with no material findings. The plan clears its statutory funding lines and its audit is unqualified.

Adequate

Fundamentally sound, with limited or fully-corrected findings. Funding above the restriction thresholds; no unresolved fiduciary breach.

Watch

Underfunded below statutory thresholds, or carrying unresolved compliance signals — delinquent contributions or a qualified opinion worth monitoring.

Stressed

Severe underfunding — accruals frozen under §436, or critical-and-declining and unrescued — or an adverse opinion or material fiduciary breach.

PensionGuard tiers are AuditPoint derived analytical outputs — not official DOL, IRS, or PBGC designations, and distinct from a plan's own PPA zone certification. All inputs sourced from DOL/EBSA Form 5500 filings (Schedules MB, SB, H, and 5500-SF) and the PBGC Special Financial Assistance roster, reconciled to source before publication.

Plans scored, by model

Single-Employer DB — Funding

Corporate defined-benefit plans scored on the AFTAP certified under ERISA §436, the statutory bright lines that restrict and then freeze benefit accruals as funding falls below 80% and 60%.

42,142plans

Multiemployer DB — Funding

Jointly-trusteed plans scored on PPA zone certification (Schedule MB), then cross-referenced against the PBGC Special Financial Assistance roster to separate rescued plans from those still declining.

1,200plans

Large-Plan — Fiduciary

Plans above the audit threshold, scored on the independent auditor's opinion and delinquent-contribution disclosures — with limited-scope elections separated from genuine adverse and disclaimer opinions.

82,352plans

Small-Plan — Fiduciary

The audit-exempt long tail on Form 5500-SF, scored on a three-tier basis (no auditor-opinion axis) from delinquent-contribution and reported-loss disclosures.

863,724plans

Defined-benefit plans are scored on their statutory funding basis; large and small plans on their fiduciary record. Shared tiers: STRONG, ADEQUATE, WATCH, STRESSED — small-plan fiduciary uses three (no auditor opinion below the audit threshold).

Who Uses It

Built for high-stakes pension decisions.

Private Equity & M&A

Deal & Diligence Teams

Diligencing a target's retirement plans — and, for anyone with multiemployer exposure, the withdrawal-liability risk a departing employer inherits. The federal funding and fiduciary record is a structural input no data room reliably assembles.

Screen a target's plans on certified funded percentage, not the zone label

Flag §436 accrual freezes and adverse opinions before signing

Separate SFA-rescued multiemployer plans from those still declining

Credit & Lending

Pension & Corporate Lenders

Underwriting borrowers that sponsor or contribute to defined-benefit plans, where an underfunded plan or a large withdrawal-liability exposure is a material claim on cash flow ahead of the credit.

Score a sponsor's plan funding at origination against the statutory lines

Flag borrowers carrying WATCH or STRESSED plans in the credit file

Identify contributors to critical, unrescued multiemployer plans

Insurance & Fiduciary

Fiduciary & ERISA Underwriters

Pricing fiduciary-liability and ERISA coverage. A plan's auditor opinion and delinquent-contribution record — separated from routine limited-scope elections — surfaces compliance exposure not visible in the application alone.

Distinguish genuine adverse opinions from limited-scope elections

Quantify delinquent-contribution disclosures across a book

Benchmark a plan's fiduciary record before binding coverage

Sample Findings · July 2026

What the federal filings tell us.

Sourced directly from DOL/EBSA Form 5500 and PBGC records. Verifiable. Citable.

Schedule MB · PBGC · Rescue Coverage

94%

Among multiemployer plans certified critical-and-declining, 94% of participants are now covered by an approved PBGC Special Financial Assistance grant — the acute crisis was real, concentrated in the worst-funded plans, and the rescue reached them.

Schedule MB 4b · PBGC SFA Roster

Schedule MB · Zone vs. Funding

88%

The largest unrescued "critical" multiemployer plan is 88% funded — running its own rehabilitation plan, not federal money. After the rescue, the critical label spans plans from 34% funded to over 100%. The status code no longer signals distress.

Schedule MB 4a × 4b · 2024

Schedule SB · ERISA §436

306

306 single-employer defined-benefit plans sit below the 60% funded line where federal law freezes benefit accruals — a statutory bright line, certified on each plan's actuarial schedule, not an estimate.

Schedule SB · AFTAP · 2024

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Every output traces to a named DOL/EBSA Form 5500 line or PBGC record. Methodology fully disclosed.

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Coverage Every Form 5500 filer

Plans scored 989,418

Scoring models 4

Data sources Form 5500 · Sch. MB/SB/H · 5500-SF · PBGC SFA

Filing data refresh Annual (DOL/EBSA Form 5500)

SFA roster refresh Weekly (PBGC)

Plan screen Custom · inquiries@auditpoint.ai

Portfolio batch Custom · volume pricing available

PensionGuard.

One filing. Four scored models.

What the scored federal record reveals.

Two questions, asked of every plan.

One vocabulary. Two bases.

Built for high-stakes pension decisions.

What the federal filings tell us.

Request PensionGuard intelligence.