Caution urged for auto features on 401(k) plans
If errors occur with these retirement savings tactics, it could be very costly to your employer clients.
Financial planning
Automatic enrollment, escalation features feed 401(k) success
More and more, companies which have integrated auto-enrollment and auto-escalation features into the retirement plan design are producing impressive participation and savings rates, more in line with the targets that will result in the kinds of 401(k) balances participants will need in retirement.
Revenue ruling eases administrative rollover burden
In an effort to make workplace retirement savings more portable and to help build assets in tax-qualified retirement plans, the Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service have removed a cumbersome step plan sponsors must take when accepting rollovers from other employers plans.
IRS releases guidance on same sex marriage and retirement plan rollovers
Benefit advisers need to know how these two long-awaited guidance notices from the IRS will affect their employer clients.
Make annuities an advising priority
Why trusted advisers should be sharing this growing retirement income strategy with their clients.
Benefits education yields recruitment and retention benefits
By getting employees more directly engaged in their own financial well-being educating them on their benefits, helping them make the right retirement planning decisions and learning how to tackle financial stress by addressing their own debt and their worries over health care costs employers are seeing lower turnover and increased productivity.
Employees’ interest in financial planning grows
A new study shows that people in the workplace have a greater sense of urgency around improving their finances, with 23% reporting high or overwhelming financial stress in 2013 compared to 18% in 2012.
Benefits Think 5 fee-related best practices for 401(k) and 403(b) plans
Are your retirement plan fees market-competitive? Fees don't necessarily have to be the lowest cost, but they do need to be reasonable.
Robert C. Lawton
Lawton Retirement Plan Consultants
Benefits Think 6 investment menu best practices for 401(k) and 403(b) plans
How does your investment fund line-up compare to the market? Do you have too many investment options or too few? Regular blogger Robert C. Lawton outlines some best practices with regard to investment menus.
Robert C. Lawton
Lawton Retirement Plan Consultants
Benefits Think 8 best practices in 401(k) and 403(b) plan design
Wondering whether your plan design is still market competitive? Leading-edge 401(k) and 403(b) plans have the following plan design features in common.
Robert C. Lawton
Lawton Retirement Plan Consultants
Employees getting back on the 401(k) bandwagon
As hopeful evidence that a half-decade of retirement savings doldrums may finally be over, a new examination of employee 401(k) participation suggests workers are back on the savings path and increasingly using HSAs as a new form of long-term financial planning.
Benefits Think Dont let RMDs ruin your plan
Typically thought of as the employees responsibility, plan sponsors should actually facilitate all aspects of required minimum distributions from alerting participants about them to activating the fund withdrawal.
Employers overwhelmingly favor fiduciary standard for plan providers, advisers
Current regulations dont require a retirement plan providers investment advice be in the best interest of plan participants, but most employers want that to change, an AARP study finds.
Few plan sponsors evaluating retirement income replacement ratios
Fewer than a third of plan sponsors measure the effectiveness of their defined contribution plans investment offerings by evaluating if projected participant income replacement ratios are being met at retirement, finds a new poll from SEI.
Benefits Think DOL ponders more guidance on 401(k) brokerage account windows
Self-directed brokerage account windows in 401(k) plans have always been controversial. Recently the Department of Labor indicated it intends to provide additional guidance on the use of brokerage account windows. Experts believe it is likely to be unfavorable for proponents of brokerage windows for several reasons.
Robert C. Lawton
Lawton Retirement Plan Consultants
Avoiding the pitfalls of the fiduciary standard
For retirement plan advisers and the plan administrator community it remains more than a bit problematic to cope with the prospect of a new threshold of responsibility for the financial decisions of plan participants. Or, having their hands tied and only being able to offer extremely financial guidance, as the case may be.
Financial fears have many workers planning to delay retirement
Although U.S. workers on a whole are more satisfied with their current financial situation than in years past, most (58%) remain concerned about financial stability in retirement and say they plan to continue working until age 70 or later, a new Towers Watson survey shows.
Benefits Think How to cater to public entities
Commentary: Employer group waiver plans provide a solution for the struggling public sector
Retirement confidence rebounds from five-year lull
Retirement confidence among Americans regained some of the losses reported over the past five years where approximately 18% are very confident and 37% are somewhat confident with the future financial needs according to a new survey from the Employee Benefit Research Institute.
Benefits Think Why bitcoin doesnt belong in your retirement plan
Both the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority and Dr. Nouriel Roubini, famed economist (also known as Dr. Doom) and a professor at New York Universitys Stern School of Business, recently expressed unflattering opinions relative to the crypto-currency bitcoin.
Robert C. Lawton
Lawton Retirement Plan Consultants