Legal Definitions - welfare plan

A welfare plan is a type of employee benefit plan that provides various benefits to employees, officers, and advisers of a company. It can include medical, surgical, or hospital care, benefits in the event of sickness, accident, disability, death, or unemployment, vacation benefits, apprenticeship or other training programs, daycare centers, scholarship funds, prepaid legal services, or holiday and severance benefits.

• Employee Benefit Plan: A written plan that provides stock-purchase, savings, option, bonus, stock-appreciation, profit-sharing, thrift, incentive, pension, or similar benefits solely for employees, officers, and advisers of a company.
• Defined-Benefit Plan: A retirement plan that provides systematically for the payment of definitely determinable benefits to employees over a period of years, usually for life, after retirement.
• Defined-Contribution Plan: A retirement plan in which each participant has a separate account funded by the employee's and employer's contributions, and each participant's benefits are based solely on what has accumulated in the participant's account.

These examples illustrate how welfare plans can provide various benefits to employees, such as retirement benefits, stock options, and other incentives. They can be either defined-benefit plans or defined-contribution plans, depending on how the benefits are determined and distributed.