What Does a Retirement Plan Advisor Do?
I am often asked what it is that a Retirement Plan Advisor does (we call them Retirement Planologists™ at our company). First, it's important to know that a retirement plan advisor works with a company to help them build and manage their company's retirement plan for their employees. (That's a very different thing than helping an individual plan for their retirement, which is what a financial planner/financial advisor does.) A Retirement Plan Advisor probably specializes in pensions, 401k, 403b, 457 and other plans provided by employers, and they may even have certain designations or credentials specific to employee retirement plans, such as the Accredited Investment Fiduciary or the Chartered Retirement Plan Specialist.
Here's a simple guide to typical services a Retirement Planologist™ provides:
Investment Policy Development, Fund Menu Design - putting together a thoughtful instruction manual for how a plan's investment options are chosen and monitored
Plan Design Consulting - considering available features and working with the plan's third party administrator to identify what might work better or be a better fit for the plan under a different design
Compliance Oversight - helping the client stay on task to meet required deadlines, educating them on their fiduciary responsibilities, making life easier when it comes to how the plan functions
Act as Investment Fiduciary (3(21)) to the Plan or Act as Discretionary Fiduciary (3(38)) to the Plan - sharing investment liability with decision makers
Vendor Management/Issue Resolution/Vendor Search - helping the client manage vendors as their advocate and translator or helping replace the vendor
Transition Services to New Recordkeeper - helping coordinate and project manage the many moving parts for when a plan moves to a new service provider
Vendor Fee/Service Reviews - making sure clients know what they're paying for what services so they can determine if fees are reasonable, also helping educate clients on what else is available in the marketplace
Investment Monitoring/Committee Meetings/Fund Replacements/Fund Manager Search - driving the bus for reviewing investments, providing due diligence reports and executive summary of what's going on with investment options, documenting the meeting minutes or providing documentation of decisions made
Education Program Strategy/Employee Meetings - figuring out how to help employees understand and appreciate the plan and then determining the course of action, conducting meetings onsite, group or 1:1, or through webinars or conference calls, and developing employee communication materials
Asset Allocation Modeling - putting together a custom set of asset allocation models taking into consideration the plan and the participants
Use this guide to help select services for your plan, or just as anecdotal evidence of what's available in the marketplace!
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