Blog
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Your 2020 Compliance Calendar
- January 21, 2020
- Posted by: Jeff Atwell
- Category: Financial Plan, Resources
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Regulations and Plan documents require a good understanding of the Plan features and the appropriate notices and disclosures. A simple compliance calendar will help ensure that these notices and disclosures are provided to participants this year.
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The SECURE Act is signed into law
- January 5, 2020
- Posted by: Jeff Atwell
- Category: Financial Plan, Resources
Congress recently passed and President Trump signed into law the SECURE Act, a great opportunity for retirement plan professionals going into 2020. Learn how changes will affect your plan or how your plan can be enhanced, and increase participant education with new requirements.
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Inspiring Participants and Perceptions of Risk
- December 16, 2019
- Posted by: Jeff Atwell
- Category: Financial Plan, Resources
A key element in Defining a Retirement Plan Standard of Excellence is inspiring participants to save for retirement. Most participants do not have the time, knowledge, or inclination to make good investment decisions and emotions play an important role in the participant’s investment decisions. At some point there will be a test of the quality of the QDIA being utilized in the Plan. It is imperative Plan Fiduciaries devote time to properly evaluate the Plan’s QDIA or engage an expert to assist them in doing so.
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Loan Leakage: Preventing Loan Defaults from Draining America’s 401(k) Accounts
- November 21, 2019
- Posted by: Jeff Atwell
- Category: Financial Plan, Resources
We’re continuing our discussion on loan leakage and looking at America’s $2 trillion retirement loan dilemma. Our resource explores different mechanisms to prevent loan leakage, illustrates the impact on individuals, and addresses the increased fiduciary risk associated with loan leakage.
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Retirement Plan Leakage
- November 12, 2019
- Posted by: Jeff Atwell
- Category: Financial Plan, Resources
Retirement plan leakage can result in a reduction of assets available for individuals when they reach retirement age. It also creates the opportunity for technology developments and consulting opportunities about how to preserve retirement plan assets.
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Contract Considerations for Service Providers
- October 28, 2019
- Posted by: Jeff Atwell
- Category: Financial Plan, Resources
A key aspect of plan governance is understanding the contract provisions of each party providing services to the plan. Plan sponsors can expose themselves to potentially substantial monetary risk if they do not review and understand service provider agreements thoroughly.
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Automatic Enrollment: the Power of Default
- October 22, 2019
- Posted by: Jeff Atwell
- Category: Financial Plan, Resources
As we near the end of 2019, the time is right for plan sponsors to review the feasibility, advantages, and disadvantages of adding automatic enrollment features. Many participants want to save for retirement, but they do not want to go through the process of making the necessary decisions to enroll in their employer sponsored plan. Automatic enrollment could be the answer.
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Fiduciary Loan Regulation
- September 26, 2019
- Posted by: Jeff Atwell
- Category: Financial Plan, Resources
Plan leakage can be the result of participants terminating with outstanding loan balances. This leads to an important question for plan fiduciaries. If a participant is going to be terminated involuntarily due to a reduction in workforce or poor job performance, and the participant applies for a loan, should the loan be granted? Based on the content of the article we’ve attached, the fiduciaries of the plan could create a fiduciary breach by granting the loan to the participant.
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Simplify Menus to Encourage Participant Engagement
- September 18, 2019
- Posted by: Jeff Atwell
- Category: Financial Plan, Resources
Complex fund menus lead to participant confusion, disengagement and poor investment decisions, so the traditional DC investment menu spread across asset classes and styles is evolving toward a smaller set of choices. Some examples are simplifying the plan menu with fewer, broader menu choices, and re-labelling those choices to correspond with the way participants understand their retirement objectives.
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DOL Investigations of Retirement Plans: 10 Key Areas of Focus
- September 2, 2019
- Posted by: Jeff Atwell
- Category: Financial Plan, Resources
Plan governance is a key element in defining a retirement plan standard of excellence. Our resource outlines 10 key areas the DOL is focused on regarding the governance of a qualified plan. As indicated in the article, only a couple of the key areas of concern deal with the investments in the plan.