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Fiduciary Governance
What’s in a fund name? More – and less – than you might imagine.
According to a new paper by academics at Kansas State, Saint Louis University and Seton Hall, along with a researcher at the Ipsos Behavioral Science Center, when a participant searches through her plan’s menu of investment options...
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To outsource or not to outsource: That is the question. Okay, that’s not what the Bard of Avon wrote. But it is the focus of a recent blog entry that outlines the advantages and disadvantages of outsourcing decisions about how a retirement plan’s funds are to be invested.
“The responsibility for a...
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The IRS on March 26 updated its Operational Compliance List for compliance in 2019. The list is intended to help plan sponsors and practitioners achieve operational compliance by identifying changes in qualification requirements effective during a calendar year.
The Operational Compliance List...
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The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is considering amendments to cybersecurity rules that could have an impact on retirement plan professionals.
The FTC voted 3-2 to propose amendments to the Standards for Safeguarding Customer Information, which became effective on 2003 and requires that financial...
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Summary plan descriptions (SPDs) are not optional — at least not for plans to which ERISA applies. And that includes retirement plans. A recent blog entry discusses SPD requirements and how they relate to retirement plans, participants and beneficiaries.
In “Summary Plan Descriptions: You Gotta...
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Nevada may be gambling with access to brokerage services for residents, based on the reactions of a number of brokerages to the Silver State’s proposed fiduciary regulation.
According to published reports, Morgan Stanley says it would halt its brokerage services in Nevada entirely if the state...
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Some employers find that financial wellness programs have much to offer: informing and empowering employees to better prepare for their current and future financial security, as well as enhancing their relationship with their employees. And at a comparatively low cost, to boot. A recent article...
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Calls for bipartisan action to address the problems facing multiemployer pension plans highlighted a March 7 hearing of the House Education and Labor Committee’s Subcommittee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.
The crisis facing multiemployer pension plans “Is not years away, it is happening...
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Since enactment of the Pension Protection Act in 2006, automaticity has been highly successful in improving retirement readiness. But new, highly personalized fintech advances may help drive retirement readiness to the next level, according to a new white paper.
Building on the success of auto-...
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Picking up where they left off in the last Congress, Reps. Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-DE) and Tim Walberg (R-MI) have reintroduced legislation to make it easier for retirement plan sponsors to provide guaranteed lifetime income products as part of their DC plan.
In general, the Increasing Access...
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A group consisting of 12 separate financial services trade associations – including SIFMA, ACLI and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce – have highlighted both preemption issues and legal deficiencies with Nevada’s proposed fiduciary regulation that they say goes “well beyond” the state’s legal authority...
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The Silver State managed to overlook the long history of ERISA preemption in its recent draft fiduciary regulations. Once again, the American Retirement Association has brought this to their attention.
The comments came in response to draft regulations issue in mid-January by Nevada’s Office of...
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Plan fiduciaries have asked the nation’s highest court to weigh in on when ERISA’s three-year statute of limitations begins – and if disclosure alone is enough to start that clock.
In asking the U.S. Supreme Court to take up the case, plan fiduciaries at Intel said the question presented was “...
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Running and maintaining a plan can be complicated — and fiduciary rules are part of the reason. A recent blog entry offers some suggestions regarding how to reduce the risk of making fiduciary errors in operating a plan.
“Operational errors can arouse the same severe consequences as an investment...
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Plan loan features in DC plans can encourage workers to participate in the plan. But the rules governing plan loans can be complicated, and mistakes can be made. A recent ASPPA webcast offered a look at common plan loan mistakes and how to correct them, using case studies to illustrate.
In “St....
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A recent study analyzing common language used to describe features of defined contribution plans reveals an apparent disconnect between what plan sponsors are saying and what participants are hearing.
As part of the study, Invesco, along with Maslansky + Partners, conducted participant focus...
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The ratification of the 22nd amendment in 1951 may limit U.S. Presidents’ tenure, but that doesn’t mean their influence over a host of areas ends when their terms of office do. And that includes retirement readiness.
In “How 5 U.S. Presidents Continue to Influence Your Retirement Readiness Today...
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“Fiduciaries that manage employer-sponsored benefits plans will likely get sued no matter what they do.” Thus begins a request from a number of retirement industry groups – including the American Retirement Association – that the U.S. Supreme Court weigh in on a controversial fiduciary case.
Said...
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In his First Quarter 2019 Washington Update, Robert Kaplan, the American Retirement Association’s Director of Technical Education, provided an overview of the new climate on Capitol Hill as well as recent regulatory developments affecting retirement plans.
On the Hill
With the changes that took...
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Having a retirement plan and a commitment to facilitating employees’ saving for their retirement is important. But the good that accomplishes can be blunted if the employer and the plan administrators don’t communicate about the plan effectively.
In “Effectively Communicating Your Retirement Plan...
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