Consolidation Corner
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Blog
- 401k Cash Outs
- 401k Consolidation
- 401k Plan Termination
- America's Mobile Workforce
- Assisted Roll-in
- Auto Enrollment
- Auto Portability
- Auto Portability Simulation
- Automatic Roll-In
- Automatic Rollover
- Automatic Rollovers
- Boston Research Technologies
- CARES act
- Common Mistakes
- DIY Roll-In
- DOL Advisory Opinion
- EBRI
- Employee Benefit News
- ERISA Advisory Council
- Financial Services Roundtable
- Financial Wellness
- How-To
- In-Plan Consolidation
- Leakage
- Lifetime Plan Participation
- Lost Participants
- Managed Portability
- Mandatory Distributions
- MarketWatch
- Missing Participant IRA
- Missing Participants
- National Retirement Savings Cash Out Clock
- Participant Transition Management
- PLANSPONSOR
- Portability Services Network
- PSCA
- Public Policy
- RCH Services
- Retirement Income
- Retirement Plan Portability
- retirement research
- Retirement Savings Consolidation
- Retirement Savings Portability
- Roll-In
- Safe Harbor IRA
- Saver's Match
- Security
- Small Accounts
- Stale Dated Checks
- Synthetic Tenure
- Uncashed Check Services
- Uncashed Distribution Checks
- Video
- Webcast
- What is a Missing Participant?
Consolidation Corner Blog
Consolidation Corner is the Retirement Clearinghouse (RCH) blog, and features the latest articles and bylines from our executives, addressing important retirement savings portability topics.
ERISA’s Golden Anniversary has Set the Stage for Helping Future Generations Improve Their Retirement Outcomes—in 2025 & Beyond
On September 2, 1974, President Gerald Ford signed the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) into law. Since that time, ERISA has become the regulatory backbone of the retirement services industry. And on September 12, members of the industry, along with legislators, government regulators, and other private and public sector representatives, came together to celebrate ERISA’s golden anniversary in Washington, D.C. My colleagues and I were honored to be among those in attendance.
Leakage & Shrinkage: Two Brothers from the Same Mother
With the release of Vanguard’s September 2024 study (Job transitions slow retirement savings), we can consider adding a new term – shrinkage – to the lexicon of retirement savings ills associated with America’s mobile workforce, taking its spot alongside its sibling, cashout leakage.
Measuring the Value of Intensive Missing Participant Searches
When it comes to locating missing plan participants, electronic searches or “e-searches” are an indispensable tool. While it’s been proven that e-searches can be highly effective, inevitably situations will arise where plan sponsors must do something more, and that typically involves performing a more intensive search, where additional search resources are applied to improve the quality of the search, over and above what an e-Search can deliver.
Four Compelling Reasons for Plan Sponsors to Adopt Auto Portability
In July, an article noted that the adoption of auto portability was picking up steam with thousands of plan sponsors already signing up for the service, delivered by the Portability Service Network (PSN). As I write this around six weeks later, that figure continues to rise at a brisk pace.
As PSN operations have commenced, and as the automated plan-to-plan consolidation of small balances begins, a familiar industry adoption pattern is emerging – where innovators within the plan sponsor community lead the charge and are quickly followed by others.
For plan sponsors who are still considering adopting auto portability, here are four compelling reasons why you should move now to embrace the new plan feature.
Two Saver’s Match Resources Now Available
Retirement Clearinghouse (RCH) has launched two new Saver’s Match resources, which offer plan sponsors, plan providers and participants with consolidated information about the Saver’s Match program, as well as a new saver-focused tool – the Saver’s Match Estimator – which will calculate an estimated matching contribution under the program.
Auto Portability Adoption Picks Up Steam
New retirement innovations, however compelling they may be, face their biggest challenge in surmounting the glacial pace of change that prevails in the retirement industry, where nothing comes easy.
The Risky Business of Cashing Out Plan Balances Below $1,000
Taking Stock of the Saver’s Match: The Promise and The Challenges
Safe-Harbor IRAs Don’t Offer a Long-Term Saving Solution for Plan Participants
During the past several years, much progress has been made to simplify the process of enabling defined contribution plan participants to transfer their savings from one plan to another when they change jobs. These strides have been made thanks to an ongoing partnership between the private and public sectors, and between Democrats and Republicans in Congress.
In November 2023, we saw the launch of the Portability Services Network, with our nation’s leading retirement plan record-keepers—Alight Solutions, Empower, Fidelity Investments, Principal, TIAA, and Vanguard—on board as founding members. The Portability Services Network makes the digital auto portability solution a reality for helping Americans keep their retirement savings invested in the system and working for them.
The Truth About Old-School Automatic Rollovers
Protecting benefits owed to a company’s current and former employees is the cornerstone of an employer’s fiduciary duty under ERISA, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year.
So, it troubles me when I read about strategies for plan optimization that advocate for continued reliance upon “old-school” automatic rollovers. While I am all-in for plan optimization, old-school automatic rollovers put employee benefits at risk by generating massive amounts of cashout leakage, stranding millions of participants’ balances in safe harbor IRAs that charge excessive fees and earn paltry returns, while disproportionately impacting minorities, women, low-income and younger workers.
-
Blog
- 401k Cash Outs
- 401k Consolidation
- 401k Plan Termination
- America's Mobile Workforce
- Assisted Roll-in
- Auto Enrollment
- Auto Portability
- Auto Portability Simulation
- Automatic Roll-In
- Automatic Rollover
- Automatic Rollovers
- Boston Research Technologies
- CARES act
- Common Mistakes
- DIY Roll-In
- DOL Advisory Opinion
- EBRI
- Employee Benefit News
- ERISA Advisory Council
- Financial Services Roundtable
- Financial Wellness
- How-To
- In-Plan Consolidation
- Leakage
- Lifetime Plan Participation
- Lost Participants
- Managed Portability
- Mandatory Distributions
- MarketWatch
- Missing Participant IRA
- Missing Participants
- National Retirement Savings Cash Out Clock
- Participant Transition Management
- PLANSPONSOR
- Portability Services Network
- PSCA
- Public Policy
- RCH Services
- Retirement Income
- Retirement Plan Portability
- retirement research
- Retirement Savings Consolidation
- Retirement Savings Portability
- Roll-In
- Safe Harbor IRA
- Saver's Match
- Security
- Small Accounts
- Stale Dated Checks
- Synthetic Tenure
- Uncashed Check Services
- Uncashed Distribution Checks
- Video
- Webcast
- What is a Missing Participant?