Know The Fiduciary
As plan sponsors, it is the employer’s responsibility to understand the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA). The ERISA sets the standard of conduct for those involved in making the decisions around the plan.
Knowing and understanding who acts as fiduciaries in your plans protects you and your future. A fiduciary is anyone using discretion and control to manage a plan’s assets. In short, fiduciaries are determined by the functions they perform for the plan, and not their title.
If you are plan sponsor of a 401k or 403b, then your institution has legal fiduciary responsibilities. The Department of Labor (DOL) lists 403b responsibilities and advice on meeting them here. We help clients navigate and meet these responsibilities.
Basic Elements of a Plan
In general, there are three key elements of a plan: the plan provider, investment options and the advisor. The plan provider is the company or vendor you have chosen to provide the accounts. Investment options are the funds that participants choose from within the plan to invest their money. The advisor is the financial planning professional servicing you.
The Butler Financial Difference
The current standard of plan design combines all of the aforementioned elements. But when the three key elements of a plan are broken out of their package and offered as separate services, the plan has the potential to be more cost-effective and free of conflicts of interest.
At Butler Financial, we have developed groundbreaking strategies and processes that aim to free those we work with from the stress and burdens of a high-cost, inefficient plan.
Areas of Concern
Two main areas of concern for plans are costs and conflicts of interest. When services are packaged as described above, it can greatly impact cost and potentially create conflicts of interest.
Many investment options exist as proprietary offerings that could add to the cost of the service.
Lack of Transparency: Some plan providers claim to not charge administration fees, but work their service fees into other costs of the package.
Does your advisor only serve to educate on proprietary offerings? Does your advisor offer services as a true fiduciary: placing your best interests ahead of their own when providing professional services?
The Process
Before steps can be taken to improve your current plan, we will sit down and have a straightforward conversation with the employers, administrators and employees. After this initial conversation, we will perform a Complete Plan Analysis, identifying key areas of weakness and areas for improvement.
As the next steps become clear, we will confidently guide participants and employers through any plan changes in order to keep everyone on the same page. We will also work with the current provider and payroll distributor in order to make sure any transitions are as smooth as possible. We will also assist those with multiple contracts or bound by surrendering fees.
Our technology and advanced tracking tools allow us to perform reviews of plans and their performance. Each participant will be updated on changes and we hold frequent education sessions for employers and their employees. By keeping in contact with all those involved in the plan, we are able to improve participation rates and improve the benefit employees feel they get from their employer.
Give us a call
Retirement plans are tricky to navigate, but with our experience and novel processes we have been able to improve traditional retirement plan offerings. If would like to learn more, please contact us at Phone: 302.778.2170, or leave your information below and we will be in touch with you shortly.
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True Wealth Is A Matter Of Deciding What You Want to Achieve With Your Capital And Ultimately Living Within Your Means.
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