Client Services
A new report asserts that today’s consumers do not want “communication,” they want personal guidance. They want to do things when, where and how they prefer. They want things easy and convenient. And they want the whole experience to be enjoyable. So, how are today’s retirement service providers...
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The Department of Labor (DOL) is planning to study how retirement planning strategies and decisions evolve — and it would like to know what you think about the effort.The DOL’s Employee Benefit Security Administration (EBSA) is soliciting comments on the usefulness of a forthcoming information...
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The IRS on March 3 issued an alert concerning a phishing email scheme that requests personal information concerning employees. The alert is especially intended for payroll and human resources professionals, but retirement plan administrators and service providers would do well to heed the alert as...
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How do broker-dealers establish and apply their cultural values? And do they guide those firms’ business conduct? The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) is conducting an inquiry to find out.FINRA recently announced that it has sent a targeted exam letter to some firms in order to learn...
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Many employees of a school district client elected to make a Roth 403(b) salary deferral, but they were all set up as regular pre-tax deferrals and no one caught this for six months. In MarketBeat, Susan Diehl tells us if the employees can change their election to pre-tax as a way to correct the...
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You have a client who dies, and leaves two sons, ages 18 and 21, as the beneficiaries of her 401(k), pension and IRA. The plan does not offer life expectancy payouts to the sons, but they have the right to roll over the pension funds into the IRA. In Tech Talk, Ellie Lowder tells us what their...
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PlanMember Financial Corporation (PFC) on Feb. 18 announced that it has become the new broker/dealer and registered investment advisor for Williams & Company. With the agreement, PFC now serves 32 financial centers.According to a PFC press release, the agreement means that PFC will be providing...
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Clients come first. And that means meeting their needs, which can entail scheduling meetings at their convenience. But is that really the best approach? Michael Kitces in “How a More Regular Client Meeting Schedule Enhances Advisor Productivity and Business Growth” posits that it may not be — and...
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Increased longevity is good news! But for pension plans it’s another story. For them, it creates more stress — it spells greater drain and heightens the likelihood that plans will pay benefits for a longer period. The Social Security Administration’s (SSA) Office of the Chief Actuary late in 2015...
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The Obama administration’s final budget wasn’t a complete retread of its prior retirement plan proposals, but there wasn’t much good news for employer-sponsored retirement plans.Small business owners and small business retirement plans were once again targeted by a proposal that would limit the...
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You have a client who has been taking substantially equal distributions for six years, and will be age 59½ in this year. In Tech Talk, Ellie Lowder tells us what are his options are after he attains age 59½.
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Generation X — long overlooked as a generational “middle child” between Boomers and Millennials — is waking up to the realities of retirement savings, according to a new report.With the eldest members of Gen X turning 50, it’s little wonder that retirement finances are grabbing a larger share of...
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The NTSA Best Practices Manual has been in use for more than five years to help establish consistency in handling compliance procedures and to help the industry and plan sponsors meet regulatory requirements. In MarketBeat, Ellie Lowder gives us a look at the discussions at the recent NTSA Masters...
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A client with an outstanding defaulted loan wants a second. In Tech Talk, Ellie Lowder tells us if it can be granted if repayment is set up to come automatically from the client’s checking account.
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America’s biggest city is not immune from pension woes. A study conducted in 2015 concludes that the retirement system serving New York City, which had assets of $162.9 billion as of June 30, 2015, needs a variety of additional resources. The New York Times reports that the New York City Office of...
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Think it’s impossible to still encounter issues with missing participants in an age in which digital footprints abound? It is. In “I’ll Be Missing You: Tips for Locating Missing Participants,” an article that appeared in the Winter 2016 issue of Plan Consultant magazine, Quarles & Brady LLP...
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A new survey finds an impressive retirement preparations gap among those who use the services of a financial advisor.In fact, according to a new survey by John Hancock Retirement Plan Services, those who work with a financial advisor double their retirement preparedness, and were more than twice as...
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Location, location, location. It’s something of a truism about the three things that most affect property values. Apparently it also applies to retirement plan access.Using a pooled version of the 2010-14 Minnesota Population Center’s Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS) Current...
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A recent study outlines what employers can do to help limit plan leakage by placing significant limitations on loans in their plan documents. In MarketBeat, Ellie Lowder suggests that 403(b), and perhaps governmental 457(b) plans as well, face the same problems and discusses what they can do.
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If a plan which sponsors an elective deferral 403(b) adds automatic enrollment to the plan, would ERISA then apply to the plan? In Tech Talk, Ellie Lowder tells us.
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