On Monday, November 27, 2017, the Department of Labor (DOL) announced that some key provisions of the fiduciary rule will be extended for 18 months. The fiduciary rule, in its most basic context, requires brokers and advisors to act in the best interests of their clients who have retirement accounts, including IRAs and rollovers from qualified retirement plans, including 401(k) and 403(b) plans.  The DOL first proposed the regulations in October 2010 but withdrew them in 2011 after opposition from the financial services industry as well as some members of Congress.  The regulations were reintroduced in 2015 with the final rule becoming effective June 7, 2016.  Compliance with the rules surrounding broker conduct and disclosure was delayed until April 10, 2017.  A transition period for compliance with some of the provisions was put in place from April 10, 2017 until January 1, 2018.  This latest delay will extend implementation of the enforcement provisions of th...

Vice President, Client Relationship Management and Consulting, Honored for Leadership in "Plan Design & Administration Innovation" HANYS Benefit Services (HBS) is pleased to announce that Carol A. Idone, CFP®, AIF®, Vice President, Client Relationship Management and Consulting, is the recipient of the 2017 SPARK Advisor Award: Plan Design & Administration Innovation.  This award is presented annually by The SPARK Institute, Inc., to a retirement plan advisor in the United States who "demonstrates leadership in designing plans and administrative processes that improve participant outcomes while managing plan costs." The SPARK Institute helps to shape national retirement policy by providing research, education, testimony, and comments on pending legislative and regulatory issues to members of Congress and relevant government agency officials. Its members serve approximately 85 million participants in 401(k) and other defined contribution plans.  Ms. Idone brin...

1. Document all decisions— Appoint a secretary to take notes on all actions and decisions. 2. Hold retirement plan committee meetings regularly— Quarterly is the best practice; make sure your people get there and have a good attendance record. 3. Appoint qualified committee members— If you want to bring in people from different departments within the hospital to have them more involved in the retirement plan process, be sure that people are chosen who understand how the retirement plan and investments work. You also need to have an odd number of people on the committee to avoid votes that end in a tie. 4. Periodically review plan operations and providers— Review the scope of services in the service agreements with all plan providers to ensure these services are still needed and are of high quality. Make sure the plan administrator and service providers are administering the plan in accordance with the plan document. 5. Ensure ERISA compliance— ERISA Sec. 404(c) protects plan sponsors ...

Retirement plan sponsors have a difficult challenge: balancing the desire to offer a valued and valuable retirement plan to their employees, with the administrative and regulatory requirements and expense of maintaining the plan. Experts agree that plan sponsors can help address these issues by consistent adoption of plan administration and oversight best practices.These steps can lower costs, increase plan enrollment, boost savings rates, and better prepare employees for a more secure retirement, while helping mitigate the risk borne by plan fiduciaries. Industry best practices suggest that plans be put out to bid every three to five years. Putting plans out to bid allows plan sponsors to take advantage of changing conditions and overall marketplace competition. This ensures they are offering their employees a cost competitive plan and one where a record keeper uses current technology for both the plan and its participants. A three- to five-year frequency does not have to needlessly b...

Act solely in the interest of plan participants — This may seem obvious, but you cannot prioritize your board, president, or local community interests over the plan participants. Act prudently — The duty to act prudently requires expertise in areas such as investment. Lacking that expertise, a fiduciary should hire someone with that professional knowledge. Fiduciaries are responsible for a decision process, not investment results. The process used to make decisions must be documented to show fiduciaries acted prudently.  Capture more detail than you typically would when documenting an employee benefits-related decision as a fiduciary, . You do not just say, “The retirement plan committee reviewed the investment menu and the performance over the last six months and discussion ensued.” Instead, say something like, “There was a discussion about fund ABC, which almost but not quite met the watch list criteria that we set up in the investment policy statement and the committee decided ...

Active vs. Passive investing styles is an age-old debate in the investing world. Investment managers on either side tend to be steadfast advocates of the merits of their approach. Active managers seek to exploit market inefficiencies by relying on analytical research, forecasts, and their own judgement and experience to decide which securities to buy, hold, and sell. Passive investing involves simply tracking an index to avoid the management fees and trading costs that can be a drag on performance by adhering to a buy-and-hold strategy. However, no one strategy always triumphs. It cannot be ignored that both investing strategies have positive attributes and have helped define the historical and current investing trends we have witnessed in the retirement marketplace. As a retirement advisory firm, HANYS Benefit Services (HBS) consults with fiduciaries to help them design a fund menu that will utilize the most appropriate investment style per asset class, customized for their Plan’s dem...

Stable value investments have been a core investment option in defined contribution retirement plans since the 1970s and are an attractive alternative to money market investments due to steady returns and principal preservation guarantees. Stable value funds have proven their worth to investors during the protracted period of low interest rates present since the recent financial crisis. Consider the following comparison of 2007-2016 calendar year total return for the Vanguard Federal Money Market Fund (VMFXX) [i] to the HBS MetLife Stable Value Fund. 1.            What is a stable value fund?  Stable value funds are low-risk, capital preservation investment options available in employer-sponsored retirement plans and other savings plans. They are invested in high quality, diversified fixed income portfolios and feature protection against interest rate volatility through contracts from insurance companies or banks. 2.   ...