Consolidation Corner
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Blog
- 401k Cash Outs
- 401k Consolidation
- 401k Plan Termination
- America's Mobile Workforce
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- Auto Portability Simulation
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- Boston Research Technologies
- CARES act
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- DIY Roll-In
- DOL Advisory Opinion
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- 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
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- Stale Dated Checks
- Synthetic Tenure
- Uncashed Check Services
- Uncashed Distribution Checks
- Video
- Webcast
- What is a Missing Participant?
Auto Portability Simulation
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.
On Filling the Leaky 401(k) Bucket
In general, legislation that gets more Americans saving for retirement is good. But if a great many of those incremental savers would likely cash out their savings immediately following a job change, then the public policy benefits might fall a bit short, no?
Auto Portability 2019: The Year in Review
At Retirement Clearinghouse (RCH), we’re excited about the 2020 prospects for auto portability. Before we’re too far into a new decade, we wanted to pause, take a breath and share with you some highlights from 2019, a year that’s positioned the newest automatic, default plan feature for widespread adoption.
How Auto Portability Serves Participants’ Best Interests - Part 3: Auto Portability Could Lower Plan Expenses

Previously:
- In Part 1, I examined the dramatically improved participant outcomes that will result from a program of auto portability.
- In Part 2, I described how auto portability, by enhancing and extending automatic rollover programs, represents an enhanced standard of participant care.
In Part 3, I present evidence that the adoption of auto portability could lead to a reduction in plan expenses.
How Auto Portability Serves Participants’ Best Interests - Part 2: An Enhanced Standard of Participant Care
In this series, I identify five key reasons why an auto portability program serves the best interests of plan participants.
Previously, in Part 1, I examined the dramatically improved participant outcomes that will result from a program of auto portability.
In Part 2, I describe how auto portability, by enhancing and extending automatic rollover programs, represents an enhanced standard of care for participants.
How Auto Portability Serves Participants’ Best Interests, Part 1: Dramatically Improved Participant Outcomes
Plan sponsors considering the adoption of auto portability must determine that, by participating in the auto portability program, they are acting prudently and solely in the interests of their plan’s participants and beneficiaries.
Pairing 401(k) Savings Preservation and Expanded Access for America’s Minorities
Over the past few years, we’ve written extensively about auto portability -- what it is, how it works and the significant, positive impact it will have on the retirement security of working Americans. Our positions have been supported by research, predictive models (including EBRI’s RSPM) and real-world results from the initial implementation of auto portability.
In this article, we address an important retirement public policy question: How would a pairing of auto portability with open multiple employer plans (or “open MEPs”) impact the retirement savings of America’s minorities, and particularly, African-Americans?
A Tale of Two 401(k) Balance Segments
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.
For job-changing 401(k) participants with balances greater than $15,000, it was the spring of financial wellness, as the bulk of their retirement savings would remain intact. For less-aristocratic 401(k) savers with balances below $15,000, it was the winter of despair, as most of their savings would be lost on the cashout chopping block or forcibly exiled to a safe harbor IRA, where more savings would perish.
401(k) Truth Bomb: Missing Participants are Bad, 401(k) Cashouts Are Worse
The problem of missing participants continues to receive a great deal of attention from plan sponsors, industry advocates, regulators and politicians. All parties are keen to address the negative outcomes that result when job-changing 401(k) participants leave behind their accounts with former employers, relocate and fail to update their address.
Regulators and Policy Advocates Focus on Retirement Savings Portability
Research has conclusively demonstrated that retirement savings portability dramatically reduces 401(k) cashout leakage, preserves retirement savings and reduces the incidence of missing participants. With that in mind, it’s not surprising that recent retirement public policy activities are increasingly focused on various aspects of portability.
The Fundamentals of 401(k) Cashout Leakage
How Big is the 401(k) Cashout Leakage Problem?
We’ve known for some years now that 401(k) cashout leakage is a very big problem, but have lacked a thorough understanding of its many dimensions.
-
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 Savings Consolidation
- Retirement Savings Portability
- Roll-In
- Safe Harbor IRA
- Security
- Small Accounts
- Stale Dated Checks
- Synthetic Tenure
- Uncashed Check Services
- Uncashed Distribution Checks
- Video
- Webcast
- What is a Missing Participant?