Nevin's Data "Points"

Last week, no fewer than a dozen industry trade organizations put their collective heads together and tried to help the Department of Labor—which has been working on a project regarding fee disclosure, and has asked for input—put together some workable principles on retirement plan fee disclosure (see Retirement Associations Submit Fee Disclosure Recommendations to DoL ). Also last week, and perhaps not coincidentally, Congressman George Miller (D-California) did what he has been making noises about doing for some time now: He introduced a bill that would put the force of law behind better retirement plan fee disclosure, both to plan sponsors and plan participants (see Representative Miller Introduces Fee Disclosure Legislation ). Miller’s 401(k) Fair Disclosure for Retirement Security Act of 2007 would go beyond mere words, however. It would mandate the inclusion of at least one “lower-cost, balanced index fund” on retirement plan menus. It’s hard to credibly argue that we shouldn’

I am fortunate enough to have access to a vast array of studies, research, and surveys about this business. Even more fortunate to have access to a PLANSPONSOR research arm that provides an opportunity not only to gather and analyze, but to pose our own questions to a remarkably diverse audience. Still, as Mark Twain once famously wrote, “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” (1) We recently ran coverage of a survey that spoke to trends among defined benefit plans. That engendered the following response from a reader: Isn't it interesting how perspective can rule the most simple things? The article you refer to that shows defined benefit plans decreasing in number is such a case. Mercer deals with the larger corporate plan sponsors. Their plans are underwater for numerous reasons and are being terminated in wholesale lots. On the other hand, small companies are making defined benefit plans the plan du jour. There are several reasons fo

Without question, asset-allocation solutions—particularly target-date fund solutions—are well on their way to becoming a dominating force on retirement plan menus. More than three-quarters of the roughly 5,000 respondents to last year’s Defined Contribution Services Survey already had one of these options on their menu. Moreover, the popularity of these offerings has resulted in a burgeoning number of choices, with what seems like a new introduction every other week, and by some of the most well-known and highly regarded names in the asset management business. Having said that, the notions of what constitutes an “appropriate” asset allocation, much less an appropriate asset-allocation fund—or fund family—are varied, to say the least. Almost as varied as the number of choices, in fact—and it appears that those notions are shifting as well. These “moving” targets (see “ Moving Targets ”) will keep us all on our toes for the foreseeable future—and I suspect that we will all bring to th

I was on a panel at our recent Plan Designs conference, and the topic of qualified default investment alternatives (QDIAs) came up. There was discussion about the Department of Labor’s proposed regulations on the subject; some observations about when we might expect to see final regulations; and ruminations from co-panelists Fred Reish and Mike Barry about ERISA’s embrace of the concepts of modern portfolio theory (MPT), and the importance of capital accumulation rather than capital preservation in making “appropriate” investment choices for participants that hadn’t, for whatever reason, elected to make their own. Then, a plan sponsor in the audience raised her hand and shared the experience of her plan—shared how they had carefully considered the alternatives of a stable-value investment alongside an asset-allocation alternative, and how they had decided on the former, and did so just before the market tanked in 2000. Her perspective was simply this: If they had chosen the asset-all