Retirement Planning
Our mission is to assist you in your quest for a plan that achieves your company’s goals
A retirement plan sponsor must act as a prudent expert under the Employee Retirement Income Act of 1974 (ERISA), and is held to a fiduciary standard of care on plan-related decisions about investments, service providers, plan administration, and general ERISA compliance issues. We help plan sponsors fulfill their ERISA fiduciary obligations.
Plans come in many types. Our mission is to assist you in your quest for a plan that achieves your company’s goals. Whether your primary objective is to reward key employee performance or provide a comprehensive benefit for all employees, we are available to review various design and administration alternatives, including:
We also provide information and resources to guide you in solving important plan design challenges such as elective and matching contributions, vesting, Qualified Default investment options, and voluntary and automated enrollment. When a custom plan design is desired, we provide a menu of unaffiliated third party service providers whom you may screen and select to assist you in creating a plan that meets the needs of your participants and to provide plan administration services.
Selecting a suitable investment provider for your plan is important. Evaluating the services and expenses of multiple providers can be complicated and overwhelming.
Let us streamline the process with our powerful search engine, which provides:
If you decide to convert your plan to a new vendor platform, we can:
An established investment strategy is critical for a retirement plan. A written Investment Policy Statement (IPS) will assist you in fulfilling your duties as a plan fiduciary. Our analytical tools, including Plan Investigator, are available to help you determine whether you are meeting your obligation as a plan fiduciary by evaluating, selecting, monitoring and replacing investment options to meet the plan’s investment policy requirements. These tools include:
We also make available the following investment-related educational services:
1 There may be implications under the Employment Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) depending on how certain types of insurance policies are made available to employees and whether such an arrangement constitutes an "employee benefit plan" under ERISA. Employers should consult their own tax and legal advisors for further information on potential ERISA implications.
2 Distributions under the policy (including cash dividends and partial/full surrenders) are not subject to taxation up to the amount paid into the policy (the cost basis). If the policy is a Modified Endowment Contract, policy loans and/or distributions are taxable to the extent of gain and are subject to a 10% tax penalty. Access to cash values through borrowing or partial surrenders can reduce the policy’s cash value and death benefit, increase the chance the policy will lapse, and may result in a tax liability if the policy terminates before the death of the insured.