Plan sponsors of 403(b) retirement plans have made progress in the past couple of years in benchmarking themselves against plans of similar size, but there is more work to be done.

According to the Plan Sponsor Council of America in its 403(b) Plan Survey, there are still a small percentage of 403(b) plan sponsors out there that don't know the ERISA status of their plan, 6.8 percent. Among smaller plans, those with 1 to 49 employees, that number was 12.3 percent in 2011. The bulk of the 500 respondents to the 2012 PSCA survey were ERISA-compliant plans.

So what does this mean, particularly with fee disclosure rules going into effect July 1 and participant disclosures expected in August? It means that plan sponsors who question their status need to speak with someone about it soon, otherwise, the regulatory ramifications could be "draconian," said Aaron Friedman, Non-Profit National Practice Leader for Principal Financial Group, the company that sponsored the PSCA survey.