Posts Tagged: 401(k)

When it comes to your company’s retirement plan, a process of prudence is the surest way to protect you and your employees. What is a process of prudence? It’s a formal plan to ensure you meet your fiduciary responsibilities, as defined by ERISA and the Department of Labor. Part of…

In prior generations, employees tended to stay at a single company for much of their working lifetimes. Upon retirement, employees would receive periodic payments from the company’s pension plan, sometimes referred to as a defined-benefit plan. The actual management of pension plan assets, including all trading research, projections and operational functions was left to investment professionals. Employees did not have to assume responsibility for making any investment decisions themselves.

We all assume that the brokers we hire to manage our 401(k) or 403(b) retirement plans will charge reasonable fees for their efforts. After all, they too need to keep the lights on. But the truth is, sometimes those expenses are excessive, and that’s getting numerous retirees and plan administrators into a lot of trouble.