Qualified Employee Retirement Plans
EMPLOYEE RETIREMENT PLANS
OUR APPROACH
As professionals with many years of experience in corporate retirement plans, our role is to serve as your company’s advocate – helping you connect your goals with the resources you need to accomplish them.
We offer comprehensive services for a variety of defined contribution plans, including 401(k) Plans, Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs), Profit Sharing or Stock Bonus Plans, 403(b) Plans, and Simplified Employee Pension Plans (SEPs)
Our approach is based on a business model supported by three core pillars: Simplicity, Focus and Balance.
1. Simplicity
We do the Work for You
- Evaluate your current retirement plan, a process that includes identifying places where you may be paying hidden and unnecessary fees
- Vendor benchmarking
- Maximize tax benefits
- Protect you and your company’s fiduciaries from unnecessary litigation
- Write a Request for Proposal (RFP) and analyze proposals to make sure you obtain the best solution
- Monitor your plan investments
- Educate and motivate your employees to participate
2. Focus
Results, Not Procedures
- Think of us as one of your employees — one who just doesn’t happen to have an office on site.
- Our expertise is in helping you get the results you want, and helping you understand the complex rules and regulations.
- We sit on your side of the negotiating table to find the best retirement plan solution for your company.
- Once your plan is implemented, we monitor it regularly to make sure it continues to meet your company’s goals over time.
- That leaves you free to focus on what you do best: running your business.
3. Balance
Minimize Costs, Maximize Value
- Like many business owners, you are likely concerned about plan costs.
- Often, we are able to uncover places where you are paying unnecessary expenses and use that money to reduce your plan’s future expenses and cover other plan fees.
- Our Retirement Plan Diagnostic is conducted at the outset of our relationship and then, on a regular basis, to determine if there are opportunities for cost savings or program enhancements. This allows us to identify strategies and elements that may have been overlooked or not kept current.
OUR PROCESS
Part of our value to you is our capability to deliver significant resources with focused solutions based on your company’s needs.
Through our years of experience working with corporate retirement plans, we have acquired a broadbased knowledge of pricing and plan providers across multiple platforms.
This enables us to offer a comprehensive suite of services and allows us to guide you in making smart, objective decisions in a wide range of areas, including:
We help you define your organization’s benefit plan and investment objectives, and review your existing program using our Retirement Plan Diagnostic.
Based on our review and analysis, we design the plan. With existing plans, we recommend opportunities for cost savings or benefit enhancements by identifying strategies and elements that may have been overlooked or not kept current.
We help you meet your fiduciary responsibilities and control risk by developing a formal Investment Policy Statement. The IPS is based on your plan design and benefit structure, and establishes clear, objective criteria for selecting and monitoring investment managers and asset management strategies.
We sit on your side of the negotiating table to walk you through the RFP process. We help you manage the flow of information and analyze and compare proposals to guide you in making informed and knowledgeable decisions about providers such as custodians and third party administrators.
We manage every step of the transition from your current retirement program to your new program. We enroll your employees and educate them about the benefits of their new program. We engage their interest and participation through regular education and financial planning briefings.
We manage the health and welfare of your retirement program over its lifetime, advising you of regulatory changes, program enhancements and investment due diligence. We regularly perform Diagnostic Reviews to continually gauge your program’s performance in light of changing regulations, market conditions and your company’s situation.
FOCUSED SOLUTIONS
Part of our value to you is our capability to deliver significant resources with focused solutions based on your company’s needs.
Through our years of experience working with corporate retirement plans, we have acquired a broadbased knowledge of pricing and plan providers across multiple platforms.
This enables us to offer a comprehensive suite of services and allows us to guide you in making smart, objective decisions in a wide range of areas, including:
- Participant-level recordkeeping/accounting
- Employee and employer reports
- Tracking investment allocations/changes and contribution changes
- Services that enhance plan efficiency, productivity, understanding and value
- State-of-the-art technology
- Web-based participant investment tools
- Web-based employer tools
- Materials describing plan design and investing
- Enrollment kits
- Payroll stuffers, posters, memos
- Newsletters
- Plan document
- Summary plan description
- Annual 5500 and pertinent schedules
- ERISA Plan audit (if applicable)
- Discrimination testing
- All available investment offerings including cash, income, hybrid and equity investments
- Open architecture
- Hard dollar fees (that are a specific amount) – paid by the employer or employees, including participant recordkeeping, compliance, loan administration, hardship and distribution fees
- Soft dollar fees (that are a specific percentage) – generally paid by employees for investment management expenses and to subsidize some or all of the administrative fees
FIDUCIARY GUIDANCE
CFOs, CEOs, Presidents and other fiduciaries have personal liability for assets in the company’s retirement plan. The following chart provides an example of fiduciary considerations required of plan sponsors by two ERISA regulations passed in 2013. Additional regulations are currently being considered by Federal legislators.
To help you comply with these and other ERISA rules, we provide fiduciary guidance and tools to help you reduce your exposure to fiduciary liability.
| ERISA 408(b)(2) | ERISA 404(a)(5) |
|---|---|
| Fiduciary Duties | Protection for Participant Investment Decisions |
| Investment Policy Statement (IPS) | Broad range of Investment Options |
| Quantitative & Qualitative Fund Analysis | Sufficient Investment Information and Education |
| Prudently Select Investments | Description of Fees and Expenses |
| Consistently Implement Results | 404(a)(5) Policy Statement and Employee Notice |
| Independently Monitor Investments | Copy of Prospectus |
| Defray Reasonable Expenses | Description of Investment Alternatives and Funds |
| Follow Plan Document | Voting and Tender Rights (if applicable) |
