Schedule A vs. Schedule C, explained.

Schedule A (Insurance Information) is attached to a Form 5500 for each insurance contract held by the plan. It reports the insurance carrier, the premiums paid, the number of persons covered, and the commissions and fees paid to the agents and brokers on that contract — which is why it's the clearest window into a plan's carrier of record and broker compensation.

Schedule C (Service Provider Information) is filed by large plans (generally 100+ participants filing Schedule H) to report each service provider that received $5,000 or more in direct or indirect compensation — third-party administrators, recordkeepers, consultants, brokers, and others — and to identify any accountant or actuary who was terminated during the year.

Schedule A is about insurance contracts — the carrier, premiums, and broker commissions on insured benefits. Schedule C is about service providers and their compensation on large plans, regardless of whether a benefit is insured. In short: Schedule A tells you who insures a plan and what the broker earns on it; Schedule C tells you who else the plan pays to run it.

Any coverage a plan provides through an insurance contract — medical, dental, vision, life, disability, and stop-loss are all commonly written as insurance and reported on Schedule A, one schedule per contract. Benefits a plan provides without an insurance contract aren't reported there.

Large plans — generally those with 100 or more participants that file Schedule H. Small plans filing Schedule I or Form 5500-SF do not file Schedule C, which is one reason service-provider visibility is stronger for larger employers.

Schedule A lists the commissions and fees paid to each agent or broker on an insurance contract, along with the premium base. That lets you see which broker holds the relationship on a given line of coverage and roughly how much that relationship is worth — invaluable for prospecting, competitive displacement, and book-of-business analysis.