Posted by: 0 in vantageblog, retirement planning, retirement plan, recordkeeper, Prudent expert, plan sponsor, plan expenses, investment education, Fee disclosure, 401(k) plan on
Mar 1, 2010
So my last blog on Fee Disclosure left us with some open issues. Namely we still need to help participants understand two things:
- The impact of the identified costs on their future retirement savings, and
- How their choices within the Plan can change those costs and outcomes.
So how could we do that on participant statements along with the simple disclosure I outlined previously?
Remember, realistically, we have to boil it down to a standardized formula/format that will work for ALL participants of ALL plans. In other words, we’ll never be able to (on an individual basis) take into account an individual’s preferences, risk tolerance, outside savings, etc., as those things are unique to the individual and couldn’t easily be “modeled” on a participant statement disclosure. (Note: there are plenty of great products available out there that an individual can use to accomplish that level of accuracy in modeling. Even those that can be tied in with your plan’s recordkeeper – Financial Engines comes to mind.)
Posted by: 0 in vantageblog, retirement audits, recordkeeper, qualified plan, plan sponsor, Plan Document, plan compliance, named fiduciary, IRS audit, fiduciary responsibility, fiduciary liability, Due Diligence, DOL audit on
Sep 15, 2009
How’s your Due Diligence file look? If the IRS or DOL came in tomorrow, would you have all of the documents related to your plan in one central location, and organized for easy retrieval? No? You need to make a project out of this and get organized!
All Plan Sponsors should maintain a central due diligence file to uphold your fiduciary responsibility. It also comes in handy at audit time – both annual ERISA audits and in the unfortunate event of an IRS or DOL audit.
So what is a Fiduciary Due Diligence File and what’s in it? A Fiduciary Due Diligence File is a central repository for all current documents associated with the Plan. It includes documentation of any actions taken on the Plan, current testing results, sample communications, committee minutes, investment fund prospectuses, and much more. We have a checklist on our site to help you get organized.
