Plans per administrator

[Guest Jhagan]

Looking for comments on how many plans per administrator is common. What is the measure of a plan # of participants/frequency of valuations or amount of assets. Let me know what you do.

[Guest]

The answer depends on what kind of plans and how much involvement the administrator has. I know of an administrator who works on Quantech, with downloaded data from Manulife who told me he has about 100 plans. These would be daily valued. He admitted to feeling pressured by his workload.

My shop handles all phases of plan operation including contribution, distribution checks, loand payments, etc. We average about 40 to 45 plans each. Balance forward and daily valued plans are mixed here. We have used plan count, we have used participant count, but so few plans are 'normal.' Which is to say, all plans have peculiarities of their own.

I heard of an insurance company whose administrators did 80 plans, but most plans were balance forward in those days.

I know of a TPA where 2 people do trust accounting, six people do compliance (documents, government forms, etc.) and distributions, and one man does all of the testing for 400 plans (including integrated and maximum contribution calculations.) 250 are balance forward and 150 are daily. Did I mention he sells investments too?

IMHO the only way to judge is by purely subjective measures. What level of service do you provide? What kind of plans, daily or balance forward? How experienced is Plan Administrator at the plan sponsor's end? How sophisticated are your support systems?

This question is the topic of discussion frequently.

Jhagan, what is your experience on this question?

[Guest klc]

Administrators in our shop have a similar number as those in Dan's shop. We also have quite a variety of different types of plans. We also have a difficult time determining the correct number.

[Guest Jhagan]

We are a small administrator providing a bundled service to governmental plans, which is exempt from the ERISA testing. We currently have a staff of two, Manager & Analyst. The Analyst handles most of the technichal work, including Quantech val's. We have a total of 75 DC plans and 50 DB plans (actuarial work done outside). The DC plans are balance forward - Annually val'd. We are beginning a pilot of quarterly val's and are concerned about the workload for one analyst. We provide all trust accounting as well as individual participant accounting & statements. Further, we do not offer participant directed investments (yet). It seems that we may be OK with one analyst for a while or at least until we expand to PDI's.