Retirement education

NAPA’s Certified Plan Fiduciary Advisor credential gives advisers a formal means to show they have the expertise needed to serve as a plan fiduciary, or help plan fiduciaries with their responsibilities.

The 401(k) industry may be the next slice of the financial services industry to be targeted by technology disruptors.

As American workers are increasingly looking to a new range of employer-sponsored retirement products to help guarantee some securely funded golden years, they may be missing out on the advantages of a system they’ve paid into their entire working lives.

Fewer than one in five American workers are contributing to traditional individual retirement accounts, with many pointing to a lack in financial confidence to afford such contributions as one of the biggest reasons for not investing.

A lack of understanding about the benefits of having both an individual retirement account and a 401(k) or 403(b) may help explain why some Americans are not contributing or considering an IRA as part of their retirement strategy.

California's struggling to pay for health care for retired state employees, with an estimated $72 billion in medical costs coming in the next 30 years. Gov. Jerry Brown's solution: Make workers start contributing money to pay for the health care they'll need after retiring.

The funded status of all U.S. multiemployer pension plans dropped from 81% at the end of 2013 to 80% at the end of last year.

Earning less money and a lack of financial knowledge make saving more difficult for women, who are turning to advisers for help, research shows.

Like the Obama administration, agency chair calls for a new regulation that would make brokers put the interests of their clients ahead of their own.

Like the recycling of paper, glass and plastic, the recycling of retirement savings through automated portability benefits everyone and is easy to implement.

The wide range of 401(k) plan fees paid by small plan sponsors and participants might be indicative of the opportunity many such sponsors have to trim those expenses.

How many of your employees will be short of money in retirement if they ignore the prospect of requiring long-term care? Answer: All of them.

Commentary: Follow these formulas to drive participant outcomes as employers look to help employees save for retirement by helping them get to a higher savings rate.

Commentary: It’s time to start thinking outside the box and considering life insurance and fixed indexed annuities as alternative investments or sub investment classes within fixed income for retirement plans.

Fidelity Investments has taken over the retirement plans of HanesBrands, which sells apparel under the brands Hanes, Champion, Bali, Playtex and Maidenform.

Commentary: Distant financial needs are rarely addressed by workers on their own, which is why employers should enhance retirement education to make up the deficit.

The 6th Circuit recently reversed Rochow v. Life Ins. Co. of N. America in an en banc opinion. The new decision determined that unless there is a showing that that the remedy for denial of benefits under 502(a)(1)(B) is inadequate to make plaintiff whole, equitable relief under Section 502(a)(3) is unavailable.

Illinois’s remedy for the state’s worst-in- the-nation $111 billion pension-funding shortfall was disliked by lawmakers who voted for it, the new governor who inherited it and public employee unions who sued to void it.

Consumers Union, the owner of Consumer Reports, agreed to eliminate the March 15 deadline for approval of an employment contract that includes an adjustable pension plan employees had bargained for in 2013.

For small employers hesitant about the cost and workload involved with administering a retirement plan, benefit advisers can offer SIMPLE IRAs as an option.