Effective with the 2009 Form 5500, the Form 5500 is electronically filed and the entire filing is almost immediately available on the DOL website. In prior years, the entire Form 5500 except the Schedule SSA was subject to public inspection, but paper filing facilitated the removal of the Schedule SSA from the public portion of the Form 5500 filing.
Since the Form 8955-SSA contains social security numbers and other confidential information, this information could no longer be included with the Form 5500, so there is now a separate filing requirement.