Showing our 403(b) Insights article library.
16
Jan 2020The SECURE Act Facts: What You Need to Know Now
To the surprise of many, significant retirement plan legislation, known as the SECURE Act, was signed into law by President Trump on December 20, 2019, thanks to its attachment to a must-pass budget appropriations bill. While comprehensive coverage of the Act will be the feature of upcoming thought …
Read more09
Jan 2020The Retirement Plan Terms to Avoid
At a recent That 401(k) Conference, I had pleasure of viewing a presentation on a defined contribution plan language study from Invesco that, to be frank, floored me. Common retirement plan terms, used by me and many others, scored terribly when deployed in participant communications – with some eve…
Read more19
Dec 2019Retirement Plan Committee Members: Why You Shouldn’t Be a Heat or Snow Miser!
My favorite holiday animated special is not Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer (although I love me some Bumble) or Frosty the Snowman. It’s The Year Without a Santa Claus, hands down. And no, it is not due to the admittedly lame plot of Santa wanting to cancel Christmas because he feels—wait for i…
Read more12
Dec 2019Five Features that Retirement Plans Can Do Without
There are many retirement plan features (such as automatic enrollment, automatic escalation, QDIAs, and well-designed loan provisions, to name a few) that add tremendous value to both plan sponsors and participants. However, there are also numerous plan features that I find to be relatively useless,…
Read more05
Dec 2019Why the Road to Zero-Revenue Sharing Can Be Bumpy
Revenue sharing refers to the practice of investment providers sharing revenue with recordkeepers in exchange for performing some of the duties that the investment provider would typically have to do. Since the concept is difficult to explain to participants and has been the focus of litigation, an …
Read more19
Nov 2019How Much Does My Retirement Plan Cost?
Here’s an exercise for you: navigate to your recordkeeper’s website and see if you can determine the exact amount you are paying for your retirement plan. If you’re a plan fiduciary or someone who works with retirement plan benefits, you already know this cost, but play along anyway - you may be sur…
Read more14
Nov 2019Top of Mind Mailbag: Emergency Savings Accounts
In response to last week’s Top of Mind post on the merits of Automated Emergency Savings Funds, a reader shared a decidedly different viewpoint, which is worth sharing with our readers. He noted that, in general, those who are unprepared for an emergency are also less likely to be saving enough for …
Read more07
Nov 201931
Oct 2019The New DOL e-Disclosure Regs
On October 22, 2019, the Department of Labor (DOL) issued the long-anticipated proposed regulations addressing electronic disclosure of ERISA-required documents such as Summary Plan Descriptions, benefit statements, fee disclosures and blackout notices. For retirement plan sponsors, the paperwork bu…
Read more24
Oct 2019Automated Emergency Savings Funds: Why Retirement Plan Sponsors Should Consider Offering Them
Technology that automates after-tax savings has come a long way. From rounding up all purchases and saving the difference, saving when a raise is received, to monitoring spending patterns and automatically saving more when there is more money in an individual’s checking account(s), there are far mor…
Read more