Retirement Plan Benchmarking Leads to Increase in Savings and Capabilities
Case Study
Challenge
This existing EB & P&C client had high fees, a provider not offering the level of services that they should, and a financial advisor who was doing nothing to improve outcomes for plan participants.
Solution
We advised this mid-sized client to make a few minor changes to its 401(k) plan. It started small. This client opted to allow AssuredPartners to benchmark its 401(k) plan on the open market. The results of the benchmarking showed a capability to save plan participants in excess of 40% of their existing plan fees per year ongoing. We advised to make the necessary changes to the plan and benchmark the results after a time period.
Knowing it is not always all about cost, it was important to add capabilities to this client’s suite of services, which was accomplished by pairing the addition of AssuredPartners advisory services with a new retirement plan recordkeeper.
Summary of additions to this client’s 401(k):
- Onsite education added for 24 locations
- Added dedicated relationship manager
- Outsourced loan repayments
- Integrated payroll submissions
- Moved hundreds of terminated participants with a balance out of the plan
- Created an open architecture fund line-up
- Brought down investment expenses
- Outsourced fiduciary investment decision making process
- Added comprehensive bilingual Financial Wellness Program
Results
Afterthe small changes to this client’s 401(k) plan, retirement readiness soared.Given current assets in the plan, this savings equates to over $125k annually.Each participant has the availability to talk to a retirement plan advisor fromAssuredPartners - not just meeting one-on-one to discuss the plan, but alsogetting advice on investment selections and savings percentages. Ultimatelythose participants, and the sponsor of the plan now have the resources thatthey didn’t have before. The guidance, resources and understanding savedthousands of dollars and all it took was a benchmarking and strategy toincrease employee satisfaction and decrease costs.