There might be a there, there. It could be that TDFs have an Achilles’ Heel that leaves them vulnerable.
Basic Members
While retirees and near-retirees may be considering starting a small side business, many don’t have any entrepreneurial experience. How might they find answers to the questions they have?
If you’re over fifty, that gold watch gleams closer and closer. You start thinking. You start wondering. You start asking questions.
401k Plan Sponsor Fiduciary Question: Is ESG an Investment Strategy, a Fad, or a Political Football?
More worrisome to 401k plan sponsors is the potential demand for ESG investments on the part of plan participants who may be driven toward these investment products not for investment performance, but to “make a statement.”
To address this requires employers to do more than having a periodic “employee education” meeting. While these can help (see the previous article), more need to be done. Plan sponsors need to consider how they (and, more importantly, their service providers) deliver messages to plan participants.
Not only does the typical plan sponsor not have investing in employee education as a high priority, but they also likely don’t have the wherewithal to monitor the consistency of how the provider runs the education program.
It’s clear that 401k plan sponsors ought to educate themselves when it comes to managing their investment provider relationship. This is the broadest fiduciary liability risk area. If plan sponsors don’t pay close attention, they may find themselves gasping for air.
Nobody’s perfect. It’s unfair to expect recordkeepers to be. Everyone makes mistakes—even recordkeepers. The problem is what happens when a mistake occurs.
How do you solve, for example, the problem of integration between the payroll software and the 401k recordkeeper’s website?
“I was [once] a major skeptic of the use of annuities, I have subsequently changed my mind regarding the efficacy of low-cost fixed and variable annuities in both personal and retirement accounts.”
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