Showing entries with the topic “Fiduciary 101”.
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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…
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May 2019The Future of Retirement Plans
In our Revamping Retirement podcast, we have been addressing the evolution of the retirement plan landscape over the past 25 years. And a lot has changed - from technology, plan design and investments, to, of course, fees. But what might the next 25 years have in store for the future generation of r…
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May 2019Something New I Learned from the DOL
Even after 27 years in the retirement plan business, there is hardly a week that goes by where I don’t learn something new - and the past few weeks have been no exception! Recently, Greg Needles of Morgan Lewis and I had the distinct pleasure of sharing a podium with Preston Rutledge, head of the E…
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Jan 2019You Have a Retirement Plan Committee - But Do You Have a Committee Charter?
Retirement plan committees (which are sometimes broken down into separate committees such as an investment committee and/or an administrative committee) serve an important function to ensure that the plan fiduciaries fulfill their responsibilities. While most plan sponsors utilize these committees,…
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Aug 2018Making Sense of Auto-Enrollment Rules
While the IRS means well, when reviewing some of the regulations, I cannot help but wonder if someone was thinking, “How can I make this as difficult to understand as possible?” Such is the case with automatic enrollment. To start, the IRS doesn’t call it auto-enrollment, they refer to it as an “au…
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Jul 2018Don’t Hire an Investment Advisor!
Did the headline catch your attention? I know it sounds bizarre, given that our firm provides, well, investment advisory services - but hear me out. The majority of Requests for Proposal (RFPs) that we receive are for investment advisers or investment consultants. However, the plan spons…
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Jun 2018Fiduciary Best Practices for Public University Retirement Plans
Last week, I had the pleasure of attending a webinar hosted by my colleagues, Joey Payne and Jeff Levy of Cammack Retirement Group, and Eric Paley of Nixon Peabody. The webinar examined best practices for public university retirement plan fiduciaries in the current litigation and regulatory environm…
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Jun 2018Retirement Jargon Confusion
As many of you are aware, there is a lot of retirement plan industry and legal jargon that is confusing not only to plan participants, but also to plan sponsors and those who work with them. In fact, one of the goals for Top of Mind and our Twitter feed is to make retirement plans mo…
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Apr 2018Three Things to Think About Besides Retirement Plan Investments
Plan sponsors often have an unhealthy obsession with assembling the ideal array of plan investments. However, investment array selection, as well as the inherent agonizing over which funds to put on watch, which to replace, etc., should be relatively low on a plan sponsor’s list of priorities. Wh…
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Mar 2018“Hell’s Kitchen” Plan Document Mistakes
My latest binge-watch is Hell's Kitchen, a reality show in which super-chef hopefuls are put through a cooking boot camp of sorts, with well-know chef (and yeller) Gordon Ramsay as their drill instructor. And yes, I am fully aware that retirement plan expertise does not necessarily translate i…
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