Fiduciary Is Fun!
(a.k.a. I heart taxes)
(a.k.a. I heart taxes)
There is much going on in the retirement plan community as we kick off 2020. New Legislation (the SECURE Act), new Regulation (the SEC’s Regulation Best Interest effective this summer), and all kinds of new research.
With respect to research, Russell Investments just published their newest study around anticipated changes that are likely to happen to your 401k plan in the next few years. The good news about most of the anticipated changes is that they will be “good.” “Good” being defined as a change that will better enable employees to prepare for a comfortable retirement. Everyone can get behind those kinds of changes. One anticipated change that stuck out to me was their “prediction” that as a matter of best practice, employers will begin to conduct retirement readiness reports of their plans to better understand the “funded status” of their participants. The term “funded status” is generally used in defined benefit (“DB”) plans to indicate the extent to which the plan has the money to pay out benefits. This is another way of saying that in the future, employers will start to look at their employees’ savings and ask “are they on track.” I’m oversimplifying a bit, but not much. The reason this stuck out to me is that I already do this with my clients. And have for quite a while. A prediction of something that is already occurring isn’t much of a prediction. However, as I thought about this, it occurred to me that maybe the majority of advisors do not assess retirement readiness, e.g. “funded status”, for their clients and that what Russell was saying is that “in the future” they might. Well, if this is what they are saying, then there is a problem. If you are company that sponsors a 401k plan, I have to ask, does your advisor conduct periodic reviews of the plan’s retirement readiness? Are you aware on a quarterly basis how your plan is doing to prepare your employees for retirement? Does your advisor have a framework to assess these questions and provide you with objective reporting? If the answer to the above is “no”, then I would respectfully suggest you have two options. The first option is to wait about 5 years as the authors of the research believe the probability to be 100% that such reporting will be in place by 2025. The second option would be to give me a call and we can start discussing how you can get this information today. After all, why would you want to wait 5 years when you can get a "future best practice” today? Pete Welsh a/k/a 401kGuy
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Northrup Grumman recently settled a lawsuit (while denying all liability for the claims and maintaining they were without fault, of course) for a little over $12mm. This case is not unlike many suits brought against large retirement plans in recent years. The arguments of “unreasonable fees” and “fund mismanagement” are well trodden paths in 2020, and these were the allegations against Northrup Grumman.
What is interesting, however, is that Northrup Grumman was not a fiduciary with respect to its retirement plan. In fact, almost 2 years ago the court actually dismissed most all the claims against the company itself. Northrup Grumman was very clever in its establishment of its retirement plan and specifically designated 2 committees – an Administrative Committee and an Investment Committee – to serve as the plan’s administrator and named planned fiduciaries. They outsourced fiduciary responsibilities to two committees! Clever! So, if Northrup Grumman was not a fiduciary to its own retirement plan and therefore can’t actually be found guilty for any violation of a breach of fiduciary responsibility, why then did it recently settle for $12mm??? The answer to this question lies in ERISA Section 1002(21)(A) which says that the ability to appoint, retain, and remove plan fiduciaries is itself a fiduciary responsibility and there is an ongoing duty to monitor those who you appoint. I recognize this is a fine point, but very important. In 2018 when the court dismissed most all the counts against Northrup Grumman, one they did not dismiss was the duty to monitor other fiduciaries they appointed, i.e. those 2 Committees! It’s another way of the court saying, “Ok, Northrup, we’ll let you out of all those direct charges against you, but if those two committees acted improperly, guess what, you’re still liable!” Today it is very common for plan sponsors to appoint investment advisors, investment managers, and even Plan Administrators who make the pitch that by appointing them the employer is relieved of fiduciary responsibility. If you are such a company, how well do you know your advisor? How well is he or she performing those duties for which you are no longer responsible? Everything good??? You sure?? If you have any concerns about the duties for which you might still be held responsible, give me a call as I would love to visit with you about how to establish a proper fiduciary governance program to help ensure you are never left holding the fiduciary bag at claim time. Pete Welsh a/k/a 401kGuy |
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