Wealth management

American workers are increasingly satisfied with their retirement plans and interested in investing in them, a trend advisers and employers use in their favor.

Start by constructing an employee education policy statement for your 401(k) and 403(b) plans. Many plan sponsors never put together this document and, as a result, have no idea if they are achieving any worthwhile education objectives.

If errors occur with these retirement savings tactics, it could be very costly to your employer clients.

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.

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.

Benefit advisers need to know how these two long-awaited guidance notices from the IRS will affect their employer clients.

Why trusted advisers should be sharing this growing retirement income strategy with their clients.

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.

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.

Are your retirement plan fees market-competitive? Fees don't necessarily have to be the lowest cost, but they do need to be reasonable.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Current regulations don’t require a retirement plan provider’s investment advice be in the best interest of plan participants, but most employers want that to change, an AARP study finds.

Fewer than a third of plan sponsors measure the effectiveness of their defined contribution plan’s investment offerings by evaluating if projected participant income replacement ratios are being met at retirement, finds a new poll from SEI.

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.

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.

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.

Commentary: Employer group waiver plans provide a solution for the struggling public sector