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Technical education is lagging behind the rapid speed of technological growth, says Frederick Brookhouse, business and education partnership manager with Snap-on, and the problems start well before secondary schools.

At the ASPPA 401(k) conference, going on this week in Las Vegas, financial advisers said that too often, plan sponsors pick their recordkeeper and then default to the investments options offered, when it should be the other way around.

There is a general belief that advisers acting as fiduciaries to a 401(k) plan would violate ERISA if they advise participants on IRA rollover opportunities and wind up managing those rolled over funds. That opinion is not surprising, according to ERISA attorney Marcia S. Wagner of the Wagner Law Group. But it is not necessarily correct.

Once the province of only large plans, ERISA Accounts have found their way into the small plan market. And if you’re an advisor working in that market, it can be an important tool for you to add value to plan sponsors.

We’re starting your week with three important facts, developments or conversations from recent and upcoming events. This week, we look at the new IRS guidelines, final ruling from CMS on MLR ratio and what’s going on in Europe with retirement taxes.

Aetna Inc., Cigna Corp. and Bupa Insurance Ltd. may bid for Abraaj Capital Ltd.’s half of Turkish health insurer Acibadem Saglik & Hayat Sigorta AS, according to three people familiar with the sale.

Get ready for tip off. Sun Life Financial is set to offer brokers a new place to take employer clients and employees — the NBA basketball court.

Opponents of a European Union financial-transactions tax say pension funds will be hurt even if their home governments don’t sign up.

Choosing the right target date fund is critically important for plan sponsors and yet it’s a decision that gets made by default far too often, according to Mark Davis, senior vice president and financial adviser with CAPTRUST Financial Advisors. Davis made his remarks as part of a panel discussion at the ASPPA 401(k) Summit, being held this week in Las Vegas.

“Make an Impact,” the theme for the 2013 NAPA/ASPPA 401(k) summit that began yesterday in Las Vegas, may have sounded more like an exhortation to the nearly 1,400 pension professionals attending the event -- but an appeal that many appear to have every intention of acting upon. Threats to the 401(k) from Washington were chronicled in the opening session by ASPPA CEO Brian Graff and others.