9/2/2010: PSCA's 401(k) Day 2010 (Profit Sharing / 401k Council of America)
Excerpt: "PSCA's 2010 401(k) Day is an exceptional education campaign that will help plan sponsors and participants learn more about the benefits of saving for retirement in a 401(k) plan. Each component of the campaign features a series of valuable education and communication tools that can be customized with your own company name and logo."
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9/2/2010: The Impact of Health Reform on Small Businesses (The Commonwealth Fund)
Excerpt: "Analysis shows that up to 16.6 million workers are in firms that would be eligible for the tax credit in 2010 to 2013. Over the next 10 years, small businesses and organizations could receive an estimated $40 billion in federal support through the premium credit program."
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9/2/2010: With Passage of Health Care Reform, Companies Faced with Hard Choices on Employee Benefits (CFO.com)
Excerpt: "The main facet of the legislation that will affect companies in the near term (starting September 23) is the requirement to expand eligibility for employees' children up to age 26, whether or not they meet the current definition of a dependent. Towers Watson estimates that will add less than 1% to most companies' premium costs."
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9/2/2010: NAIC Approves Form for Medical Loss Ratio Reporting (Wolters Kluwer)
Excerpt: "The National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) Executive Plenary Committee has approved final implementation of a medical loss ratio (MLR) 'blanks' to implement Public Health Service Act 2718 as added by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act."
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9/2/2010: Public Sector Pensions: One of the Greatest Ponzi Schemes of all Times (The Free Enterprise Nation)
Excerpt: "Public sector pension plans take a series of liberties that create an unrealistic financial scenario that can only be described as one of the greatest Ponzi schemes of all times. These include underestimating the raises that government workers may earn until they retire and overestimating the interest assumptions for funding. This collection of bogus assumptions is hidden away in 'off-the-balance-sheet' accounting practices . . . ."
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9/2/2010: Washington Mutual to Settle Stock Drop Suits for $49M (PLANSPONSOR.com)
Excerpt: "[L]aw firm Keller Rohrback said the proposed settlement provides for a payment of $49 million, minus expenses including court-approved attorneys' fees and expenses and service awards to the plaintiffs who brought the lawsuit, taxes and other costs, to be allocated to class members whose 401(k) accounts suffered losses as a result of investing in Washington Mutual common stock."
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9/2/2010: Are Workplace Smoking Bans Hazardous? (Human Resource Executive Online)
Excerpt: "A study finds that reduced smoking in the workplace may lead to higher rates of obesity, leading some experts to wonder whether company smoking bans really do have an overall beneficial effect. They stress that a holistic view on wellness initiatives, including incentives, is necessary."
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9/2/2010: SEC's New Rules to Facilitate Rights of Shareholders to Nominate Directors (Haynes and Boone, LLP)
Excerpt: "Some companies may challenge the SEC regarding these rules. Other companies may want to follow these challenges as they proceed through the legal process to determine if they should consider making amendments to their bylaws or formation documents regarding director nominations by shareholders and shareholder proxy access."
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9/1/2010: State Pension Fund Faces Shortfall, Candidate for State Comptroller Says (The New York Times; free registration required)
Excerpt: "When the state takes its snapshot of the fund, he says, it makes several mistakes, including two big ones. First, it counts money that is not in the fund -- hoped-for investment gains that may or may not appear and future contributions from workers and taxpayers. Second, it does not take into account that the state pensions are worth more than other such promised money because they come with a constitutional guarantee."
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9/1/2010: Perks/Alternative 'Rewards' Substitute for Fatter Paychecks (Columbia Daily Tribune)
Excerpt: "Flextime -- allowing individuals to alter their working hours -- can be an attractive reward for hard-working employees. . . . Another option is getting employers to pay for courses, seminars and conferences, or membership to professional groups . . . ."
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9/1/2010: Industry Groups Weigh In -- Heavily -- on Fiduciary Provision (Investment News; free registration required)
Excerpt: "Monday marked the last day the public could offer comments on whether the SEC should adopt a universal fiduciary standard for both investment advisers and broker-dealers -- a highly controversial proposition for those in the financial advice business."
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9/1/2010: What Matters Most? An Analysis of Investment Committee Hire/Fire Decisions (The Vanguard Group, Inc.)
Excerpt: "Hiring investment managers is harder than firing them, according to Vanguard's second annual survey of investment committee members. At the same time, committees that find manager evaluation more difficult also have a significantly lower rate of manager turnover which, in turn, can reduce investment management costs."
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9/1/2010: Vanguard CEO Comments on Target-Date Fund Proposals on Fund Names and Marketing (PDF) (The Vanguard Group, Inc.)
7 pages. Excerpt: "In particular, we support the use of charts and graphs to help investors better understand a fund's current target asset allocation, a fund's projected asset allocation upon reaching the target date, and a fund's projected final asset allocation. At the same time, we believe that the SEC could achieve its objectives more effectively by taking a more streamlined and tailored approach to improving disclosure in TDF marketing materials."
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9/1/2010: Cash Balance Plans Can Hold Hidden Risks for Plan Sponsors (The Vanguard Group, Inc.)
Excerpt: "Plan sponsors who move to a cash balance plan from a traditional defined benefit (DB) plan may not always realize they are trading interest rate risk for investment risk, Vanguard's chief actuary maintains."
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9/1/2010: The Towers Watson Retirement Attitudes Survey (PDF) (Towers Watson)
6 pages. Excerpt: "The survey found that: More than half of employees across all ages report significant declines in their savings over the last two years. Employee confidence in having enough savings to live comfortably in retirement has recovered from February 2009 levels, but remains well below precrisis levels. While confidence is higher for those who participate in a defi ned benefit (DB) plan rather than a defined contribution (DC) plan, such as a 401(k), more younger employees are beginning to express concerns about their DB plans."
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9/1/2010: New Retirement Plan Fee Disclosures: Getting Ahead of the July 16, 2011, Deadline (Thompson Hine LLP)
Excerpt: "Although the Schedule C fee reporting rules and the new fee disclosure regulations are similar, the disclosure and reporting requirements imposed by the fee disclosure regulations place significant new burdens on service providers to disclose the fees they expect to receive from retirement plans. In addition, plan sponsors must confirm that proper disclosures are made. Accordingly, both retirement plan sponsors and retirement plan service providers need to be prepared to identify, track and properly disclose compensation paid for services provided to retirement plans."
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9/1/2010: A Blueprint for Monitoring and Managing Your Plan Investments (National Association of Government Defined Contribution Administrators)
Excerpt: "The plan sponsor drafts the investment policy usually with the help of an attorney, a consultant, or a plan provider. There are no specific guidelines in place for what is required to be included in the policy. The recommended approach is to provide an investment strategy and practice understandable to a third party that is flexible enough that it can be implemented in a complex financial environment but not so detailed that it requires constant revisions and updates."
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9/1/2010: Fall 2010 Likely to See the Most Significant Effort to Accelerate Income Since 1994 (Michael Melbinger via Winston & Strawn LLP)
Excerpt: "[Why?] Big tax increases. Absent some quick and unexpected action by Congress, beginning January 1, 2011: the top individual ordinary income tax rate will increase to 39.6% from 35%, the top dividend tax rate will increase to 39.6% from 20%, and the long-term capital gain tax rate will increase to 20% from 15%."
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9/1/2010: National Results: 2010 UBA Health Plan Survey (United Benefit Advisors)
Excerpt: "While other surveys primarily target large employers, this survey focuses on reporting results that are applicable to the small to midsize companies who represent the overwhelming majority of the nation's 5 million-plus employers, with a mix of larger companies in rough proportion to their prevalence nationally."
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9/1/2010: NAIRPA Comments on Target Date Funds: Focused Disclosure Key for Investor Understanding (National Association of Independent Retirement Plan Advisors via American Society of Pension Professionals & Actuaries)
4 pages. Excerpt: "Essentially one size does not fit all when it comes to disclosure of the risk, volatility, age horizon, asset allocation or glide path of TDFs. Specifically this disclosure is relevant to three types of investors who constitute roughly two-thirds of the TDFs market -- (1) the plan sponsor or fiduciary, (2) the active participant, and (3) the default participant. Each of these investors has different concerns and needs . . . ."
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9/1/2010: 'When I'm 64' -- How Aging U.S. Baby Boomers Have Begun to Carry That Weight (RAND)
Excerpt: "The trend toward delayed retirement could also be good news for the cognitive capacities of aging baby boomers. Cross-national data from 13 developed countries have shown a correlation between delayed retirement and the delayed onset of cognitive declines, with both delays being more characteristic of older Americans than of older Europeans."
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9/1/2010: Plan Sponsors Not Focused on Same Issues As Advisers & Regulators (Fiduciary News)
Interview with PlanSponsor's Nevin Adams. Excerpt: "Adams: Like their workers, I find most plan sponsors are more worried about the here-and-now aspects of health care reform than they are retirement plans, per se. People are people, after all, and there is a strong sense that we have more time to deal with retirement than with health care, and there is a great concern about what the new law will require, and how that will impact existing programs, and what that will mean."
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9/1/2010: Trends in Workplace Retirement Education (401khelpcenter.com, LLC)
Excerpt: "Plan sponsors want to make sure they are ahead of the curve with their retirement education programs rather than responding too late to major industry changes. To do so, they need to know the key trends in workplace retirement education and financial education."
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9/1/2010: Pension Fund Investments Are Up, But Gaps Persist (The Pew Charitable Trusts)
Excerpt: "A review by Stateline of 20 public employee pension plans in 19 states shows preliminary returns ranging from 10.8 percent for the Nevada Public Employee Retirement System to 18.7 percent for the South Dakota Retirement System. Meanwhile, Wilshire Associates, a California-based investment adviser, reports a 13.09 percent median return among public plans with more than $1 billion in assets for fiscal 2010, compared to an 18.76 percent loss in fiscal 2009."
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9/1/2010: Broke Miami, Florida, Breaking Employee Contracts (NBC Universal, Inc.)
Excerpt: "The city is operating under a state of 'fiscal urgency,' declared earlier this summer. The budget deficit for next fiscal year is about $110 million. The proposed cuts in salary, pension contributions and health insurance costs amounts to about $86 million in savings for the city."
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9/1/2010: Striking Coca-Cola Workers' Benefits to Be Restored (Business Insurance)
Excerpt: "[T]he Atlanta-based soft drink company maintains it was within its legal rights to suspend the workers' health benefits during the work stoppage, which began Aug. 24. The company spokesman also said Monday that when health benefits are restored, workers' contributions will be prorated to reflect the temporary lapse in coverage."
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9/1/2010: GASB Moving Towards Radical Overhaul of Public Pension Accounting (PDF) (CHEIRON, Inc.)
12 pages. Excerpt: "'Preliminary Views' issued by GASB on pension accounting would, if adopted, represent a radical departure from past practice and bring governmental employers much closer to the FASB standards governing private employers. Public employers should anticipate that the accounting rules under consideration would have a significant impact on their balance sheet and income statements."
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9/1/2010: Women Want Retirement Education Improvement, According to Survey (PLANSPONSOR.com)
Excerpt: "According to the news release, 57% want more information and advice from their employer on how to reach their retirement goals, and 40% cited 'a good starting point that is easy to understand' as something that would motivate them to learn more about retirement savings."
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