by Robert C. Lawton | May 30, 2017 | Plan Design, Plan Sponsor Insights
A significant factor in helping your 401k plan participants achieve retirement readiness is protecting them from themselves. In other words, helping participants avoid making bad decisions. An important component of that process is minimizing the loss of participant account balances from loan defaults.
Also called leakage, defaulted loan balances are typically removed from participant retirement accounts forever. This account leakage can be reduced by a well-designed 401k loan program. A state-of-the-art 401k loan program has the following characteristics:
by Robert C. Lawton | Jan 10, 2017 | Fiduciary Compliance, Investments, Plan Design, Plan Sponsor Insights
A few changes can make your good 401k plan into a great one. To help your 401k plan achieve greatness, consider making the following 401k plan improvements this year: 401k Plan Improvements 1. Financial wellness education The hottest of all 401k plan...
by Robert C. Lawton | Dec 13, 2016 | Plan Design, Plan Sponsor Insights
Competition for qualified employees is becoming intense. As a result, firms that you compete with for talent will be buffing up their benefits packages in 2017. Listed below are the changes that leading-edge employers will make to their 401k plans as a result of the...
by Robert C. Lawton | Oct 18, 2016 | Plan Design, Plan Sponsor Insights
401k plan participants often wonder whether they should contribute their hard-earned money to a Roth 401k or a pre-tax 401k account. Depending on their age and tax bracket, the answer may be both! Many 401k plan participants have the option of making pre-tax 401k...
by Robert C. Lawton | Aug 23, 2016 | Investments, Plan Design, Plan Sponsor Insights
The large mutual fund families are doing everything possible to keep you from moving your 401k money market investments away. BlackRock, Federated, Fidelity and Vanguard have all announced changes to their money market fund offerings which they hope will allow them to...
by Robert C. Lawton | May 3, 2016 | Plan Design, Plan Sponsor Insights
Recently ThinkAdvisor shared some scary retirement statistics from a report by the National Association of Government Defined Contribution Administrators, Inc. (NAGDCA). These retirement statistics paint an alarming picture of most American’s state of retirement...
by Robert C. Lawton | Mar 15, 2016 | Investments, Plan Design, Plan Sponsor Insights
At the very least, your Investment Committee should have a discussion about the topic. Here’s why. Why Consider ESG Investing ESG investing defined ESG is an acronym that stands for environmental, social and governance. These criteria represent the major...
by Robert C. Lawton | Mar 1, 2016 | Employee Education, Plan Design, Plan Sponsor Insights
Whenever I talk with 401k plan sponsors or participants about making Roth 401k contributions, at least half of them tell me they would never do it. They all cite the same reason. They don’t trust the federal government to keep its Roth 401k promise to allow...
by Robert C. Lawton | Nov 17, 2015 | Investments, Plan Design, Plan Sponsor Insights
Recently, it has become popular for large corporations to adopt customized target date fund approaches for their 401k plans. Before jumping into why this approach has never made much sense to me, it might be good to start out with a couple definitions. Why Custom TDFs...
by Robert C. Lawton | Sep 29, 2015 | Investments, Plan Design, Plan Sponsor Insights
Weak equity markets have one silver lining for those executives in your organization that might have large 401k account balances: In-plan Roth 401k conversions. Roth In-Plan Conversions Why now? Most of us have experienced significant declines in the value of...
