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Verisight
in AL

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ACCG - GEBCorp
in GA

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GuideStone Financial Resources
in TX

Administration Specialist
Administration Partners, L.L.C.
in AL

Manager of Retirement Programs
Publix Super Markets, Inc.
in FL

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SIMPLE and SEP IRA Plans
April 16, 2015 WEBCAST
(McKay Hochman Co., Inc.)

Advanced Boot Camp for Pension Practitioners
April 21, 2015 in CA
(NIPA - San Diego Chapter)

401(k) Plan Workshop 2015
May 7, 2015 in OR
(SunGard Relius)

401(k) Plan Workshop 2015
May 7, 2015 in MN
(SunGard Relius)

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[Guidance Overview]

A Warning to 401(k) Plan Sponsors Who Are Relying on TPAs
"As the IRS has made clear, plan sponsors may not abdicate total responsibility to their TPAs to accurately track the administration and retain documentation of participant hardship distributions and loans. Therefore, plan sponsors should review plan records frequently, and ensure that they have regular access to, and can frequently audit, TPA records to remedy deficiencies as they occur. TPA service agreements should be drafted accordingly." (McCarter & English)  

[Advert.]

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[Guidance Overview]

EPCRS Revisions: The Second Act
"Rev. Proc. 2015-28 provides great advantages to employers by lowering or eliminating the QNEC requirement and providing a less cumbersome method of calculating earnings, thereby reducing the costs and administrative burdens associated with correcting plan errors. What's more, the new safe harbors are available to correct deferral failures that pre-date the April 2, 2015 release of the guidance." (Verrill Dana LLP)  

[Guidance Overview]

IRS Modifications to EPCRS Focus on Auto Features
"The changes April 2 to automatic features included suspension of a required qualified non-elective contribution for missed elective deferrals if the error does not extend beyond ... 9-1/2 months after the end of the plan year of the failure and satisfies several specific conditions listed in the revenue procedure. They also create a rolling correction period for elective deferral errors lasting three months or less in which a QNEC is no longer required." (Thompson SmartHR Manager)  

Federal District Court Finds Lenders to Hedge Fund Not Liable as ERISA Fiduciaries
"A federal court recently dismissed ERISA breach of fiduciary duty claims asserted by Delphi Beta Fund, LLC, a hedge fund, against two of its bank lenders, because there was no precedent for applying ERISA's fiduciary duties to a third party lender to a hedge fund." [Delphi Beta Fund, LLC v. Univest Bank and Trust Co., No. 14-2404 (E.D. Pa. Mar. 27, 2015)] (Proskauer's ERISA Practice Center)  

Investment Advisers: Who Are They and Why Does It Matter?
"With such a variety of titles, it can be difficult to know which legal standards -- if any -- apply to the individual who is giving you financial advice.... Some advisers may receive financial incentives from mutual funds or insurance companies for selling a particular investment product. These advisers can, and often do, put their own financial interests ahead of yours when they recommend an investment, earning high fees and commissions for themselves while costing you thousands of dollars in lost earnings." (Pension Rights Center)  

[Advert.]

2015 SALGBA National Conference - May 3-6 in Bonita Springs, FL

(SALGBA) is the premier organization providing educational and collaborative support for public sector employee benefits professionals, such as national and regional conferences, member directory, and more. For a complete list visit www.salgba.com.

Lifetime Income: Using ERISA's Statute of Limitations to Minimize Insurer Insolvency Risk
"[H]ow do we protect the fiduciary from a participant's breach of duty claim should an insurer become insolvent years hence, and be unable to the pay the retirement benefit otherwise promised under the annuity? ... [W]ouldn't the fiduciary be protected by ERISA's 6-year statue of limitations under ERISA section 413? ... [I]nsurance companies do not become insolvent overnight.... The public, at least those which follow the financial services world, have long notice of something currently being amiss in an insurer's balance sheet." (Business of Benefits)  

Boomer Expectations for Retirement 2015
"Overall economic satisfaction among Boomers dropped precipitously in 2015, to 48% from 65% in 2014 and further down from 76% in 2011. The decline in overall satisfaction was more pronounced among retirees, plunging to 45% from 72% in 2014, versus 53% of working Boomers feeling satisfied compared to 60% in 2014.... Only six in 10 Boomers report having money saved for retirement, down sharply from prior years when approximately eight in 10 had retirement savings.... The percentage of Boomers feeling extremely or very confident they will have enough money to last throughout retirement has declined significantly, to 27% of Boomers in 2015 from almost four in 10 in 2011." (Insured Retirement Institute [IRI])  

Is Auto-Portability the Next Big Thing?
"Spencer Williams, president and CEO of Retirement Clearinghouse [said,] 'Here we are in the business of taking people out of the plan -- a mandatory distribution -- what if we set up a system with all the recordkeepers, and instead of sticking these small balances in a safe harbor IRA ... what if we went looking for their new 401(k) and automatically rolled them in?' " (PLANSPONSOR)  

When Retirement Bucket Portfolios Meet Multiple Retirement Accounts
"Investors typically accumulate assets in multiple silos -- company retirement plans, IRAs, taxable accounts, and/or various vehicles for self-employed folks -- and those accounts are frequently multiplied by two for married couples. These retirement-savings wrappers vary in their tax treatment upon withdrawals, and some carry mandatory distributions post-age 70-1/2. Given all of those variables, the once-simple-seeming bucket strategy can become not so simple in a hurry." (Morningstar)  

Asset Allocations: How Workers Invest Their Retirement Savings
"About 15% of these investors shy away from equities entirely, while roughly 22% invest everything in equities. Nearly 33% of households with no control over their investment selections have no equity investments. The design of employer-sponsored programs shapes participants' asset allocations and thus their wealth trajectories." (Towers Watson)  

Initiative Seeks to Help Participants Investigate Retirement Plans
"A former SEC attorney says retirement plan participant lawsuits don't benefit anyone, and he has launched a new initiative designed to hold plan sponsors accountable for their actions.... According to the Investigate My Retirement Plan website, 'Greater transparency, lower cost and better performance is our goal.'... [Edward 'Ted' Siedle, founder and president of Benchmark Financial Services] wants his effort to lead to annual checkups or regularly scheduled second opinions for retirement plans that are independent from the plan sponsor." (PLANSPONSOR)  

Defined Contribution Pensions Gain Access to Private Equity
"By year's end retirement savers in U.S. and U.K. defined contribution schemes could be investing in leveraged buyouts and distressed-debt deals. In a big change for the world's two largest pension markets, new structures will let plan participants move money into some of the highest-returning assets around." (Institutional Investor)  

How Human Advisors Might Adopt Robo-Advisors
"This robo-advisors-for-advisors trend, though, raises interesting questions about how exactly advisors should position themselves and their own value proposition. What is the value of an advisor offering a largely self-service automated investment solution? Is it still in portfolio design and investment selection? Or managing the behavior gap? Or simply an opportunity to focus on other financial planning advice and value-adds instead? And does a robo-advisor-for-advisors solution support AUM pricing, compress it, or force advisors to unbundle instead?" (Michael Kitces in Nerd's Eye View)  

Projected Funding Rates for the Next Several Plan Years
"[The authors] have calculated 5,000 stochastic simulations of the Pension Protection Act of 2006 yield curve, assuming current funding laws remain in place throughout this calculation and using Milliman's capital market assumptions.... Based on the stochastic simulations, it would appear that the 2016 plan year HATFA segment rates have already been determined.... [It] can reasonably be predicted that the 2017 rates will be the HATFA rates based on these simulations." (Milliman Retirement Town Hall)  

How Will Longer Lifespans Affect State and Local Pension Funding?
"Using the private sector standard, public plans underestimate life expectancy by only 0.5 years, reducing the 2013 funded status of state and local plans from 73 to 72 percent. Incorporating future mortality improvements would increase life expectancy by 2.3 years and reduce the funded ratio of public plans from 73 to 67 percent. Public sector plans appear to be making a serious effort to keep their life expectancy assumptions up to date." (Center for State & Local Government Excellence)  

The Tax-Saving Tool You're Not Using
"ESOPs allow owners to 'slowly extricate themselves from the company,' says Mark Kohler of Kyler Kohler Ostermiller & Sorensen ... The plans help entrepreneurs control the pace at which they relinquish their management role and allow them to structure their income needs for post-retirement. That might be especially beneficial in difficult situations where one partner has an illness and wants to both guarantee his family an income stream while still handing over ownership of the business." (Entrepreneur)  

Many Underfunded Public Pension Plans Pay Bonus Checks to Retirees When Investments Do Better Than Projected
"As the city of Detroit's financial condition deteriorated, its employee-pension funds made hundreds of millions of dollars in bonus payments to retirees.... Yet Detroit's struggles haven't stopped the retirement systems of other cities and states -- including some with severely underfunded pensions -- from continuing to dole out bonuses." (The Wall Street Journal; subscription may be required)  

New Jersey Officials Say Constitutional Right to Pension Funding Was 'Fabricated' by Court
"In the lower court, the state attorney general's office argued that the law was unconstitutional. In a brief for the appeals court, the office contends largely that [it is] Judge Mary Jacobson's ruling that is defying the state constitution. 'The court not only created an immutable, constitutional right to annual pension funding in the amount of ever-increasing billions, but also gave the Legislature the blue print for permanently locking down ever-increasing fractions of the state budget,' the state said in its filing." (The Washington Post; subscription may be required)  

Gilligan's Pension, or The Tale of an Island Actuary
"For the most part, these are nonqualified pensions. Companies often do not contribute to them annually in the same way that they do with broad-based pensions. And, for the most part, the companies have not changed a thing. Economic conditions changed. Life expectancies are constantly increasing, and this happens to be the year that a major new mortality table was released. My suggestion is this. Provide all the information that a media person needs in simple tabular form." (John H. Lowell, via Bloomberg BNA Pension & Benefits Daily)  

Bruce Ferris Named Chairman of the Insured Retirement Institute Board of Directors
Prudential Financial, Inc.

Ineffective Sales Tools Frustrating Benefits Brokers, TPA’s, Insurance Carriers
Virtual Management Systems

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