What is The True Measure of Success of Your Company's Retirement Plan?
Even when your plan's investments are top-performers, your employees' greatest obstacles to success is their own behaviour. If the measure of a retirement plan's success or failure is the ability of its participants to retire with enough money to last them for the rest of their lives, how do most plans measure up?
In Most Plans, 80% of Participants Will Fail
In
the typical 401(k) plan a participant has less than a 20% chance of
success (measured by current funding levels and historical ranges or
real investment returns). That means 80% of your participants are going to fail! Why?
They are not
saving enough money, and their real investment returns are consistently
suboptimal. In a nutshell, they are not following any of the
time-tested and successful management techniques followed by
sophisticated defined benefit plans.
The 401(k) Industry Has Failed Participants
And where are 401(k) advisors, consultants, brokers, vendors, record-keepers, and mutual fund companies in all of this? Since the inception of 401(k) plans, these players have introduced various features supposedly designed to improve participant success:
- glossy educational materials and campaigns
- sophisticated web-sites
- an ever-expanding array of investment choices
- Daily valuations
- Participant web-sites
- 24/7 participant access
- Emailed statements
- 800 number participant support
- Lifestyle funds
How have all these features impacted the success rates of the participants? Shockingly, the 80% failure rate has not improved over the last 2 decades. What can be done to turn your participants' failure into success?
How We Can Make a Difference
You should expect every provider to be good at all things
listed above. However, we are different in three
ways
that significantly raise the success rate of your employees:
- We focus on a successful outcome for every single participant.
- We offer fiduciary liability protection for the plan sponsor.
- We are independent, fee-only, “commission-less” advisors with no conflicts of interest. We never forget that our client is your company and your employees.