In the retirement plan industry, we frequently discuss the challenges posed by missing participants – those former employees with outdated contact information. However, a related phenomenon often receives less attention: unresponsive participants.

No retirement plan sponsor likes the idea of dealing with uncashed distribution checks, nor do they wish to draw unwanted regulatory attention or to become embroiled in costly litigation because of their uncashed check policies.

Unfortunately, many plan sponsors place themselves in precisely that spot, becoming unnecessarily over-burdened with unresolved uncashed checks, while inviting unwanted regulatory scrutiny and/or legal challenges by embracing flawed uncashed check policies.

A more-enlightened approach to managing the problem of uncashed checks seeks to minimize their numbers, while simultaneously steering clear of the “red flags” that could land them in hot water.

Over the past 15 years, a very large (250,000+ participants) 401(k) plan sponsor that our company has had the opportunity to serve has been highly successful in delivering improved participant outcomes by incrementally adopting a full program of retirement savings portability.

Were the plan’s experience set to music, it could be described as “401(k) Portability in Four Movements” – opening with discordant levels of cashout leakage but quickly building towards more satisfying participant outcomes, including substantial improvements in the preservation and consolidation of retirement savings.

In this five-part 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 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.

Beginning in 2000 and continuing for a decade, American consumers were overtaken by “bacon-mania” – an obsession with the tasty, fried cured-pork treat that included cookbooks, exotic new products and a catchy slogan: “Bacon Makes Everything Better.” Great all by itself, bacon was hailed as having the added virtue of improving the taste of almost any dish it was added to.

Now that we’re in the thick of flu season, we’re reminded of Ben Franklin’s famous axiom: “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”  A yearly flu shot is perhaps the best example of an effective, preventative action you can take to minimize your odds of catching the flu, and keep you breathing more easily than those who haven’t.