Advertisement
News Archive
Single premium pension buy-out sales exceeded $1 billion in the first quarter of 2018, says a recent report.In fact, those sales topped $1.3 billion, according to the LIMRA Secure Retirement Institute (SRI). But it’s not really anything new, LIMRA says; it notes that the first quarter was the 12th...
READ MORE
The average individual 401(k) and IRA balances of Fidelity clients dipped a bit in the first quarter of 2018 compared to the previous quarter, but year-over-year increases remained strong.According to Fidelity Investments’ most recent quarterly analysis of retirement savings trends and behaviors,...
READ MORE
Please note that our websites, education resources, and email will be unavailable from 8:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. EDT on Sunday, May 27 for server maintenance. We apologize in advance for any inconvenience.
READ MORE
Robert Kaplan, the American Retirement Association’s Director of Technical Education, provided a look at recent regulatory and legislative developments in a May 22 ASPPA webcast.Kaplan began the Second Quarter 2018 Washington Update webcast with a discussion of fiduciary rules. He noted that the U....
READ MORE
A measure before the Senate would create a Commission on Retirement Security. S. 2753, The Commission on Retirement Security Act of 2018, would establish a federal commission to review private retirement benefit programs and report to Congress on how to improve private retirement security in the...
READ MORE
The IRS is now accepting applications for opinion letters for pre-approved defined contribution (DC) plans for the third six-year remedial amendment cycle.
The IRS says that for it to consider a third cycle application, a pre-approved DC plan provider must verify compliance with the second cycle’s...
READ MORE
Gains in access to DC plans were offset by lower rates of access to defined benefit plans, but overall younger workers saw some improvements, according to a new study using data from 1998 to 2012.Using data from the U.S. Census Bureau Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP), the Pew...
READ MORE
The ACOPA Chicago Symposium is coming up!It is an honor to serve on the symposium conference committee with such dedicated volunteers, who want to bring the best educational experience to all who attend the symposium. If comments from attendees at prior conferences are any guide, the reasons one...
READ MORE
For the second time in as many days, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit has denied a motion to reconsider its decision denying three states’ motion to intervene in litigation involving the Department of Labor’s fiduciary rule.
In a May 16 filing, the states of California, New York and...
READ MORE
Five key Senate Democrats are concerned about the Department of Labor's (DOL) current lack of defense of the fiduciary rule — and they want to know what the DOL plans to do going forward.
The May 17 letter, addressed to Secretary of Labor Alexander Acosta and signed by Sens. Patty Murray (D-WA),...
READ MORE
Participant transfer activity picked up in April, but was still well short of surges earlier in the year.April had four days of above-normal trading activity — up slightly from March’s value (2), but lower than the values for January (12) and February (9), according to the Alight Solutions 401(k)...
READ MORE
New survey results reveal a variety of differences by generation and other demographic factors pertaining to perceptions and concerns about retirement savings strategies.
Now in its 7th year, Franklin Templeton Investments’ annual Retirement Income Strategies and Expectations (RISE) survey finds...
READ MORE
How healthy is your plan? How healthy are the plans you serve? There are a variety of ways to gauge plan health, but a recent blog entry suggests that looking at account balances can be instructive.In “Retirement Plan Account Balances: Big and Small,” an entry in Cammack Retirement’s “Top of Mind”...
READ MORE
It seems inexplicable that a retirement check would not be cashed. But for a TPA, plan administrator, employer or plan sponsor, it’s more than inexplicable — it’s a problem. Recent blog entries make some suggestions regarding how to help make sure they don’t happen in the first place.
A recent...
READ MORE
The glass is half full — or half empty — regarding retirement saving levels, depending on who one listens to. A recent white paper takes a look not only at how employees are doing, but also the habits that can help in achieving greater financial security in retirement.
In the white paper “Scoring...
READ MORE
Rarely a week goes by that a headline, survey or academic paper doesn’t proclaim the reality of a retirement crisis with the certainty generally reserved for topics like the existence of gravity, or the notion that the sun will rise in the east.And certainly based on the data cited, there would...
READ MORE
The Plan Sponsor Council of America’s 2018 Annual Conference May 1-2 featured the insights of experts on issues critical to retirement plan sponsors and industry professionals.Retirement readiness, best practices in serving plans and running a plan and practice, industry and regulatory developments...
READ MORE
There are those who argue for encouraging older workers to not prolong their career longevity so as to reduce costs for employers and facilitate upward mobility for younger generations. But a recent study suggests the exact opposite — that employers actually should encourage employees to delay...
READ MORE
The states of California, New York and Oregon have asked the 5th Circuit to reconsider its decision denying the states’ motion to intervene in litigation involving the DOL fiduciary rule.
In a filing on May 16, the states explain that since the federal government “is no longer pursuing this appeal...
READ MORE
The House Education and the Workforce Committee’s Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions heard testimony May 16 on four retirement-related bills that members are confident will be approved before Congress adjourns for the year.
The hearing generally was viewed as an attempt to...
READ MORE