401(k) Monitor

UnitedHealth Group 401(k) Savings Plan

UnitedHealth Group Incorporated · Minnetonka, MN · EIN 411321939 · Plan 001 · Form 5500 for plan year 2024

What UnitedHealth put into the plan, per active participant

$3,341

UnitedHealth Group Incorporated put $3,341 into this plan for each of its 199,134 active participants in plan year 2024. That is the whole employer side, matching money, profit sharing, non-elective and safe-harbor contributions and reallocated forfeitures together, because the Form 5500 reports them on one line, so it is not the match rate.

0 · least per person100 · most per person

UnitedHealth put in more per active participant than 58% of plans with 5,000+ participants at law, consulting and engineering firms. The middle plan in that group of 168 reported $2,987. Law, consulting and engineering comes from business code 541990, which UnitedHealth Group Incorporated entered on its own Form 5500. Sponsors pick that code themselves, so a code that does not describe what the employer does ranks the plan against the wrong companies.

What this figure cannot separate: how much UnitedHealth pays, and how much it puts in

This is dollars, not a rate. A Form 5500 carries no payroll, so the figure reflects both how much the employer puts in and how much the employer pays: two plans running the same formula report different amounts when one pays better. Crossing the peer group with industry holds most of that difference still, and none of it disappears.

This is one plan year, not an average. A true-up, a plan merger or a one-off contribution moves a single year on its own.

Source: Form 5500 filing for the plan year ended December 31, 2024, received by the DOL July 16, 2025 · DOL EFAST2

The $3,341 above is the Form 5500 figure for plan year 2024, and it counts every employer dollar on one line. UnitedHealth Group Incorporated also files a Form 11-K, which states the match formula on its own for plan year 2025: the section below reads $2,228 a year at a $49,500 salary, and the same filing states employer contributions made outside the match. That second figure is what the formula pays one worker on that salary, and not an amount either filing reports. The two figures cover different plan years and measure different things, so neither one is the other one corrected.

What the plan cost, per participant

$21.66

The plan paid $21.66 per participant in plan-paid administrative expenses in plan year 2024, cheaper than 83% of plans with 5,000+ participants. The middle plan of that size paid $54.84.

Why a plan this big pays less per person before anything else

Bigger plans pay less per head by construction, because the same negotiated bill divides across more people. That is why this ranking sits inside the plan's own size cohort and is never taken across all plans.

Schedule H reports only what came out of plan assets. Fees the sponsor pays directly, and fees taken inside fund expense ratios, never appear here, so this is a floor and not the all-in cost.

401(k) Monitor Score

66 out of 100

Where this plan stands against plans of its size and industry on two amounts its Form 5500 reports: employer money in per active person, and plan-paid cost per person. It reads no match formula, no vesting schedule and no fund lineup, because a Form 5500 states none of them.

  • What the employer put in, per active participant: $3,341. Higher than 58% of plans with 5,000+ participants at law, consulting and engineering firms.
  • What the plan cost, per participant: $21.66. Cheaper than 83% of plans with 5,000+ participants.

How this score is built

On this page: the match and vesting terms · what to check next · every figure on the filing · fees itemised · the plans this one is ranked against · service providers

The match and vesting terms, from a Form 11-K

The match formula and the vesting schedule are stated in a Form 11-K, which is filed only by employers whose plan holds company stock. A Form 5500 reports neither.

What UnitedHealth puts in

$2,228

a year, at a $49,500 salary.

The match paragraph, word for word
The Company makes a safe harbor matching contribution equal to 100% of contributions up to 3% of eligible compensation, plus 50% of the next 3% of eligible compensation for a maximum contribution of 4.5% per payroll period as defined in the Plan document. Additional discretionary contributions may also be made by the Company. No discretionary contributions were made during the 2025 plan year.

What you contribute to collect all of it

Contribute at least 6% of your pay to collect the full match.

That is $2,970 a year at a $49,500 salary, and it scales with your own.

Vesting score

71.43 out of 100

How fast the employer’s money becomes yours. Higher than 32% of the 253 schedules we have scored.

It measures vesting speed and nothing else. It says nothing about the size of the match, what the plan charges, or the funds inside it.

Vesting scheduleCliff, 2 years

Share of the employer's money that is the worker's at hire and at each of the first 6 anniversaries: 0%, 0%, 100%, 100%, 100%, 100%, 100%. The score is the average of those 7 readings.

Vesting, word for word
Participants are immediately vested in their salary deferral contributions, rollover contributions, and earnings thereon. Employer safe harbor contributions and discretionary contributions, if any, and earnings thereon vest in accordance with the provisions of the Plan as follows: Years of Service Vesting Less than 2 years 0% 2 or more 100% Notwithstanding the vesting schedule above, employer contributions, if any, will become fully vested (100%) upon the occurrence of any of the following events while the participant is employed by the Company: the participant’s death, disability, attainment of normal retirement age (age 65), a partial or complete termination of or complete discontinuance of contributions to the Plan, or an acceleration date, as defined in the Plan document.
Wait before the match starts1 year

A worker hired today collects no match for 1 year. This is a filed term, and it does not move the score above.

Eligibility, word for word
In general, eligible employees may make salary deferral contributions to the Plan upon employment with a participating employer of the Company and are automatically enrolled in the Plan as soon as administratively feasible after their hire date. Participants become eligible for employer safe harbor matching contributions once they are credited with one year of service. Employees whose employment is governed by the terms of a collective bargaining agreement (unless such collective bargaining agreement provides for the inclusion of those employees in the Plan), persons who the Company classifies as leased employees, and certain other classifications of employees are not eligible to participate in the Plan.

The wait before the match starts and the year-end true-up appear above when the filing states them. Neither is part of the score, and a filing that is silent on one of them is not a plan without it.

The formula, the six-year window and a worked example

What the plan costs, against plans of its size

17th percentile

$21.66 per participant in plan-paid administrative cost, cheaper than 83% of plans with 5,000+ participants.

The match, vesting and eligibility terms above are read from the Form 11-K filed by UnitedHealth Group Incorporated, whose page states the full formula, the vesting schedule and the sentence behind each one.

What to check next

  • Collecting the whole match

    UnitedHealth’s Form 11-K pays the whole match at 6% of pay, which is $2,228 a year at a $49,500 salary and scales with your own. Your payslip and your Fidelity NetBenefits account both show the rate you set. A rate below 6% collects less than the whole match.

    That Form 11-K covers plan year 2025. The plan’s Summary Plan Description states the terms in force, and the plan administrator must provide it to participants on request.

  • Weighing this employer against another

    UnitedHealth’s filed match formula is set against another employer’s, term by term, on 3 pages: CVS Health, Cigna and Humana.

  • Your own numbers are not on this page

    Every figure here is the whole plan for plan year 2024, taken from one filing and divided by headcounts. Your own contribution rate, your balance and the fees taken from your account are on your recordkeeper’s site, which this filing names as Fidelity NetBenefits. What you may put in during a year is set by the IRS and not by the plan: this year’s limits ↗.

Key figures

From Schedule H of Form 5500 filing 20250716132709NAL0002446659001, plan year 2024.
Total plan assets, end of year$26,618,762,181
Net assets$26,618,762,181
Participants, beginning of year278,507
Of which active199,134
Plan typeSingle employer
Size cohortThe peer group we rank fees against.5,000+ participants
Employer share of the money that went in, plan year 2024The rest came from employees, who put in $1,460,702,106. The share falls when employees save more, so a plan whose staff contribute heavily reads lower here through no act of the employer. It is printed as a fact and it is not part of the score.31%

Plan-paid administrative expenses

The plan paid $6,033,226 in administrative expenses in plan year 2024, across 278,507 participants: $21.66 per participant.

Contract administrator feesnot reported in filing
Professional feesnot reported in filing
Investment management feesnot reported in filing
Other administrative feesnot reported in filing

These are plan-paid expenses from Schedule H only. Fees the sponsor pays directly, and fees embedded in fund expense ratios, never appear here. This figure is a floor, not the all-in cost, and a low number is not “free”.

The plans this one is ranked against

Fees on this page are ranked against the 5,000+ participant cohort, where the median plan pays $54.84 per participant. The sponsor files from Minnesota, one of 1,484 plans on file there, at a median of $133.83 per participant. Its business code places the plan at law, consulting and engineering firms, one of 7,635 on file, which run to a median of $152.18.

Plans of a similar size in Minnesota

The plans nearest this one by participant count, out of 62 in its peer group. Cost per participant is each plan’s own Schedule H figure, and a filing that reported no administrative expenses says so instead of showing a zero.
PlanParticipantsCost per participant
Target Corporation 401(k) PlanTarget Corporation475,573not itemized
Wells Fargo & Company 401(k) PlanWells Fargo & Company288,416$34.04
Best Buy Retirement Savings PlanBest Buy Enterprise Services, Inc.111,163$44.06
U.S. Bank 401(k) Savings PlanU.S. Bancorp94,695$103.70

Service providers (Schedule C)

Recordkeeper: Fidelity Invst Instnl Oprtn Co, Inc. (as filed: “FIDELITY INVST INSTNL OPRTN CO, INC”)

Providers from Schedule C, Part 1, Item 2 of filing 20250716132709NAL0002446659001. Direct compensation is paid from plan assets. Amounts in USD.
ProviderService codesDirect comp. ($)Indirect comp. ($)
Fidelity Invst Instnl Oprtn Co, Inc.65, 71, 64, 50, 376,033,2260

Source

DatasetDOL EFAST2 Form 5500 bulk data (FOIA)
Form year2024
Filing ACK_ID20250716132709NAL0002446659001
Dataset last refreshedJuly 28, 2026

Bulk dataset at askebsa.dol.gov ↗ · Look up the filing on EFAST2 ↗

Filings lag by design: a plan can file up to 9½ months after its year ends, so this is the newest data on file. Why filings lag

Cite this page

401(k) Monitor, "UnitedHealth Group 401(k) Savings Plan: Form 5500 facts", from DOL EFAST2 filing 20250716132709NAL0002446659001, plan year ended December 31, 2024. 401(k) Monitor Score 66 out of 100 (exact value 65.69).