29 U.S.C. § 1081 — Coverage

(a) Plans excluded. This part applies to employee^* pension benefit plans described in section 1003(a) and not exempted by section 1003(b), except:
(1) employee welfare plans;
(2) “insurance contract plans” under (b);
(3) unfunded plans maintained mainly to defer compensation for a selected group of management or highly paid employees;
(4)(A) plans established and maintained by a society, order, or association under section 501(c)(8) or (9) of title 26, when employers of participants make no contributions to or under the plan^*, and (B) trusts under section 501(c)(18) of title 26;
(5) plans that have not provided employer^* contributions at any time after September 2, 1974;
(6) an agreement providing payments to a retired partner, deceased partner, or a deceased partner’s successor in interest as described in section 736 of title 26;
(7) an individual retirement account or annuity under section 408(a) of title 26, or a retirement bond described in section 409 of title 26 as effective for obligations issued before January 1, 1984;
(8) individual-account plans other than money-purchase plans, and defined-benefit plans treated that way under section 1002(35)(B);
(9) excess-benefit plans; and
(10) any plan, fund, or program under which an employer whose stock is directly or indirectly owned by employees, former employees, or their beneficiaries proposes, through an unfunded arrangement, to compensate retired employees for benefits those employees lost under a pension plan^* maintained by a former employer before that pension plan became subject to this chapter.
(b) “Insurance contract plan” defined. For (a)(2), it means a plan:
(1) funded only by individual insurance contracts;
(2) with level annual premiums beginning when each person^* joins, or when an increase takes effect, and ending no later than retirement age;
(3) whose normal-retirement benefits equal the contract benefits and are guaranteed by a State^*-licensed insurer to the extent premiums were paid;
(4) whose premiums for the plan year^* and all earlier plan years were paid before lapse or whose policy was reinstated;
(5) whose contract rights were not subject to a security interest at any time during the plan year; and
(6) with no policy loans outstanding at any time during the plan year.
A plan funded only by group insurance contracts may also qualify if Treasury regulations find that it has the same characteristics as the contracts described above.
(c) Terminated multiemployer plans. For a terminated multiemployer plan covered by section 1321, this part applies until the last day of the plan year in which the plan terminates, as defined in section 1341a(a)(2).