Cite as: 510 U. S. 86 (1993)
Thomas, J., dissenting
payments that were not guaranteed, e. g., benefits paid for a fixed amount of time unless the fund from which they were paid was depleted sooner. In both cases, ERISA imposes fiduciary duties on the insurer. But as long as the benefits will be guaranteed, a variable return to the plan entails no such risk for plan participants. Whether the insurer earns 2% or 20%, or even loses 20% on its investments, participants will receive the same amount of benefits.4
In short, the provision of guaranteed benefits does not require the provision of a guaranteed return to the plan, nor does it require that all amounts to be provided in the future be currently guaranteed. In my view, an insurance policy "provides for benefits the amount of which are guaranteed" when its terms make provision for fixed payments to plan participants and their beneficiaries that will be guaranteed by the insurer. The policy need not guarantee the aggregate amount of benefits that will ultimately be returned from the plan's contributions or insulate the plan from all investment risk to accomplish that more limited goal.
Of course, as the Court correctly observes, § 401(b)(2) excludes an insurance company's assets from fiduciary obligations only "to the extent that" the policy provides for guar-4 In this case, Sperry's retirement plan, not the insurance policy, specifies the amount of benefits to which a plan participant is entitled. App. 119, 121. The return on the funds held under GAC 50 has no effect on that amount. Thus, even if the free funds fell to zero and the policy terminated, see ante, at 105-106, plan participants whose benefits had not yet vested would be entitled to the same amount of benefits under the plan itself, and would have an action against the plan if it failed to pay. See 29 U. S. C. § 1132(a). For this reason, it is simply wrong to suggest, as some amici curiae do, that reversing the decision below would leave millions of pensioners unprotected by ERISA. See Brief for Senator Howard Metzenbaum et al. as Amici Curiae 15. If the plan, on the other hand, is "trapped" by an unwise insurance contract, the trap is one of its own making. Those amici are in a far better position than this Court to persuade Congress to protect pension plans from their own mistakes and misjudgments. Nothing in either the text or the logic of the guaranteed benefit policy exception provides such protection.
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