Nevin's Data "Points"

One of the things I enjoyed most about writing/publishing NewsDash over a 16-year span (12 years at PLANSPONSOR, and four before that as an internal email) was doing a weekly survey – on a wide variety of topics, both serious – and not-so-serious. My favorite of the “regular” surveys (and there weren’t many that repeated, even over all that time) was the annual survey of holiday movies. And while there were certain perennial favorites, it seemed like every year there was a real “battle” for the top slot among readers. As for this year – well, the survey was admittedly a bit ad hoc – but the results were just as fun. So, here’s the top 5: Christmas Vacation (26.1%) It’s a Wonderful Life (15.2%) Elf (13.0%) How the Grinch Stole Christmas (4.3%) A Charlie Brown Christmas (4.3%) …asked to choose a second favorite, It’s a Wonderful Life and Elf tied for first, with 14% of the vote. You can check out the NewsDash survey from 2010 at http://www.plansponsor.com/SURVEY_SAYS_What_is_Your_Fa...

Editor’s Note: There’s so much going on in the world of retirement saving and investing that I never feel the need (or feel like I have the opportunity) to recycle old columns – but this one has a certain “evergreen” consistency of message that always seems appropriate – particularly at this time of year. A few years back—when my kids still believed in the reality of Santa Claus—we discovered an ingenious Web site. This was a Web site that purported to offer a real-time assessment of your "naughty or nice" status. Now, as Christmas approached, it was not uncommon for us to caution our occasionally misbehaving brood that they had best be attentive to how those actions might be viewed by the big guy at the North Pole. But nothing ever had the impact of that Web site - if not on their behaviors (they're kids, after all), then certainly on the level of their concern about the consequences. In fact, in one of his final years as a "believer," my son (who, it must ...

After a dozen years here at PLANSPONSOR, effective November 1 , I have joined the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) in Washington, D.C., as Director, Education and External Relations, and Co-Director of the EBRI Center for Research on Retirement Income. I have long had a strong personal and professional admiration for the work that EBRI does in helping provide our industry with valuable and objective information and am thrilled to be able to be part of those efforts at this critical juncture. It has been my great privilege over this past decade and change to share with you some of my thoughts and observations in this space. You have been generous both with your comments and commentary on those musings, as well as our publications overall. While it’s not quite Thanksgiving, I thought I would dedicate this final “IMHO” to sharing some of the things for which I’m thankful: I’m thankful that the vast majority of plan sponsors continued to support their workplace retirement prog...

When I’m talking to plan sponsors (and advisers) about the challenges of being an ERISA fiduciary, I’m generally inclined to emphasize the awesome responsibilities that come with the “assignment”: the impact exerted on participant retirement savings; the admonition to ensure that fees paid by, and services rendered to, the plan are reasonable; the implications of the prudent expert rule; and the liability (and personal liability, at that), not only for your own acts, but for the acts of your co-fiduciaries (and hence an urgency around knowing who those co-fiduciaries are). I’m inclined to talk about the limitations of ERISA 404(c) in providing a shield against all that potential liability. I’ll remind them that the Labor Department considers them responsible for all participant-directed investments outside 404(c)’s provisions, and note how frequently participant directions tend to fall outside those provisions. I’ll tell them how important it is to read the plan document, and to make...

I recently found myself driving in an unfamiliar city without the aid of a GPS (global positioning system). Sadly, I had become so accustomed to having that device available, I hadn’t even taken the time to print out instructions from any of the usual Internet sources, and while there were maps in the vehicle, none were of the area in question. That didn’t matter, I told myself—because I had made that drive before, had a pretty good idea of where I needed to be and, armed with a pretty reliable memory for such things, I set out with only a little trepidation. Just about the time I was getting pretty confident in my ability to navigate without all the high-tech “crutches,” I was thrown a series of curves. The primary route was closed due to construction, the rerouting didn’t seem to take into account where I was trying to get to, an unexpected one-way street suddenly emerged going the “wrong” way, and then I found myself directed onto a parkway whose designers had apparently never co...

We spent some time this past weekend getting my eldest daughter squared away in her new apartment. It’s her first, and as with nearly all first apartments, there is a lot you need to get that you never needed in your room at home or in your dorm away at college. So we headed out to IKEA. Those who have never had occasion to visit an IKEA store should check it out at least once. They are mammoth stores—big on the outside and seemingly even more massive on the inside. It’s the kind of store you can easily get lost in (not to worry, they have their own food court inside), and yet it’s very hard to simply get from point A to point B, even if you know what you want to buy. About the only way to get through the store is to wander along the winding path the IKEA folks have constructed that takes you—literally—through every display imaginable.1 But the really interesting thing about the IKEA shopping process is that you not only have to find what you want, you must write down the part n...

A few weeks back, I offered some notions about what the next five years will bring in terms of industry trends (see “ IMHO: Fifth ‘Avenues’ ”). However, in preparing for our recent PLANADVISER National Conference, I came up with five more. Everybody isn’t going to do automatic enrollment. Without question, automatic enrollment has done much to shore up the retirement savings rates of American workers. For plan sponsors and participants alike, the efficacy of an approach that doesn’t require participants to complete an enrollment form, deliberate over investment choices, set upon a desired rate of savings, or even darken the door of an education meeting has done much to get tens of thousands of workers off on the right retirement savings foot. And, for the vast majority of workers, the ability to do the right thing without doing anything at all has not only been well-received, but much appreciated as well. Not that automatic enrollment as outlined by the Pension Protection Act (PPA)...

There was another judicial decision in another revenue-sharing case earlier this month—and another victory for a plan sponsor. The case was Loomis v. Exelon (see Another Plan Sponsor Win on Revenue-Sharing ), a case argued before the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which had previously weighed in on the case that appears to be setting the tone in most of these cases, “Hecker v. Deere & Co.” Hecker, as you may recall, involved a situation with a large, multi-billion-dollar plan that offered its participants access to a couple of dozen funds from a single provider alongside a self-directed brokerage window that afforded access to funds beyond that. The 7th Circuit dismissed that challenge, finding that the competitive forces of the market were sufficient to ensure reasonable fee levels for the specific funds on the menu, and that, if the participants felt otherwise, they could always pursue other options via the brokerage window. In Exelon, there was no brokerage window, though ...

Last week the Senate Finance Committee held a hearing on “promoting retirement security.” While options were presented to improve things (see “ Industry Groups Urge No Changes to Retirement Savings Tax Advantages ”), the discussion quickly veered toward a debate on whether and how well—or poorly—the current system is working. That said, listening to the witnesses, 1 one might well have thought they were discussing completely different systems—from one that is striking a good balance between incentivizing employers and encouraging participants to one that is all about providing tax benefits for saving to those who don’t require such enticements; from one that is putting too much responsibility on individual savers to one that has managed to, on a voluntary basis, draw the support of roughly eight in 10 workers. One that has failed, and seems unlikely to ever deliver a real retirement income solution—or one that has the potential to make that a reality. Metrics Systems As always, the...

During last week’s GOP presidential candidate debate, Texas Governor Rick Perry grabbed headlines by reaffirming his position that Social Security is a “Ponzi scheme.” Pundits were quick to jump on the comment, apparently believing that such rhetoric will “spook” the electorate (specifically older and independent voters) and ultimately make Perry unelectable, while purists were quick to point out the distinctions between the operation and intent of the two approaches, apparently believing that the technical distinction would matter (to anyone besides purists). True, a Ponzi scheme, such as the one Bernie Madoff ran, as well as Charles Ponzi’s original design, is positioned as an investment. Investors hand over money to someone, believing that their money will be invested and grow. Instead, the scheme “runner” generally pays off longer-term participants with money invested by newer investors. Sooner or later, there are not enough new investors to fulfill those expectations and the wh...

Today PLANSPONSOR opens nominations for our Retirement Plan Adviser of the Year awards. Each year we receive a number of inquiries from advisers and plan sponsors about the awards, and many of these fall into a category I tend to think of as “exploratory”—feelers as to what we are looking for. At its core, what we hope to acknowledge—and, thus, what we are looking for—hasn’t changed from when we first launched the award in 2005: advisers who make a difference by enhancing the nation’s retirement security, through their support of plan sponsor and plan participant information, support, and education. Since its inception, we’ve focused on advisers who do so through quantifiable measures: increased participation, higher deferral rates, better plan and participant asset allocation, and delivering expanded service and/or better expense management. A Different World The world has, of course, undergone much change since we first launched those awards, and advisers now have an expanded...

It’s been a stressful week—and it’s not over yet. Over the past 10 days, I’ve managed to survive three college move-ins, an earthquake in our nation’s capital and—with a little luck—a hurricane bearing down on the Northeast even as I write this column. Now, I know it’s summer—Labor Day is only a week off—and there’s a lot looming over our industry’s head, but the fact is, I am—perhaps like many of you—having trouble focusing on anything other than Hurricane Irene. See, we live in a neighborhood that seems particularly prone to losing power, and we’re frequently the last in our town to have it restored—and that’s when we don’t have a hurricane sweeping the Eastern seaboard! It’s bad enough to be without power for several days, but the last time it happened, it was accompanied by some significant rainfall, and we quickly found out (the hard way) that the sump pump that normally keeps that extra water from pouring into our basement requires electricity to function. Fort...

I finally got to the dentist last week. Don’t get me wrong, I like my dentist. The folks there are more than nice, they treat you like an adult (even when you clearly haven’t flossed since your last visit), and they outline options in a way that feels like you actually have a choice (including my personal favorite, “If it’s not bothering you, do nothing”). That said, it had been a ridiculously long time since I had been there. Honestly, I knew it had been a while, but when my dentist pulled out his (detailed) record of my last visit—well, let’s just say I couldn’t believe it had been that long. In fact, I think if I had known how long it had been before I went, I might well have postponed it again, if only to spare myself the embarrassment. Fortunately, despite my extended hiatus, things were in pretty good shape. Sure, the cleaning was more painful than it might have been, but overall, things were better than I had a right to expect. After the market tumult of the pas...

I have watched with increasing interest the growing furor over the Department of Labor’s proposed new fiduciary definition. My first impressions of the proposal were positive: generally speaking, IMHO, the more people who work with ERISA plans that conduct themselves as ERISA fiduciaries, the better. The notion that broadening that standard would serve to “run off” those not as committed to this business bothered me not at all. However, and as is often the case with new regulations, areas of concern began to pop up. Those involved with the valuation of privately held stock in Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs) were initially most strident, though the work they do has a tremendous impact on thousands of employer and employee accounts. More recently, and of more interest to many advisers, the Department of Labor’s temerity in bringing IRA accounts under the ERISA fiduciary umbrella has drawn fire from “more than three thousand advisers,” according to the Financial Services I...

The year we began publishing PLANADVISER was a big year in many ways for me – it marked my twentieth wedding anniversary, it was the year my father passed away, the year my eldest went off to college for the first time, and also the year that “catch-up contributions” became an item of more-than-passing interest to me. In recent weeks, I’ve had occasion to think back on those past five years, and all that has transpired – the Pension Protection Act, QDIAs. the back-and-forth on fiduciary advisers, the first wave (and subsequent flurry) of revenue-sharing lawsuits, the growing emphasis on transparency and disclosure, the growth – and questions about – target-date funds, the “normalization” of a fiduciary role for retirement plan advisers, and more recently, the back-and-forth on an expanded fiduciary definition. Like many of you, I can still recall the tumultuous news of September 2008 – all hitting during our PLANADVISER National Conference that year. While it’s fun and interesting to ...

I was late to the NetFlix game—switching over only when my local Blockbuster closed its doors. Honestly, I was more than a little skeptical about paying to rent movies while spending most of the month waiting for the mail carrier to shuffle things back and forth. Those fears (along with concerns drawn from early stories about people being sent movies at the bottom of their list, rather than the newer, hotter releases) have turned out to be mostly a non-issue. More recently, I “discovered” the firm’s online library of free movies—and while I would say that most of them SHOULD be free (some you should be paid to sit through), I have enjoyed having that “extra” feature. Sure, there were times when the Internet delivery speed wasn’t optimal, or when a movie would time out a third of the way through, but heck, it was free. Until, of course, NetFlix announced a change in pricing policy, a change that would cut the cost of the traditional movie rental service, but that would charge—and ch...

In my experience, there are three major reasons that people save for retirement. There’s the lure of the “free money” represented by the employer match, the benefit in deferring the payment of taxes, and there’s the hopefully obvious benefit of helping make sure you have enough money set aside to provide a financially satisfying retirement. While one might hope that the last represents the dominant motivation for most, I suspect it’s almost incidental. Anecdotal evidence would suggest that the match exerts a powerful influence on savings behaviors. Sure, any number of participant surveys emphasize its importance as a factor, but to my eyes, the most compelling evidence is the clustering of participant deferral rates—in plan after plan—at the level at which the employer has deigned to provide that financial incentive. As for the tax advantages, outside of Warren Buffett, I can count on one hand the number of individuals of my acquaintance who feel they are “under-taxed.” More import...

There were three big disclosure announcements last week. The first two were the pushback of the effective date for 408(b)(2) fee disclosures to April 1, 2012, from the previously announced effective date of January 1 of that year. In the same announcement, the Department of Labor also delayed the compliance date for the participant level fee disclosure regulation for most plans to May 31, 2012 (a month ago, the DoL had said that information would have to be made available no later than April 30)—which, from a practical standpoint, means that the information must be provided by August 14, 2012 (45 days after the end of the second quarter in which the initial disclosure is required)(see “ Borzi Chats about Upcoming Definition of Fiduciary Rule ”). Those delays are, doubtless, of some relief to the provider community. They’re not pushed back far enough to significantly delay the beneficial impact of the disclosures (though this is not the first time they have been pushed back), but I’m...

You may have missed it, but there was a bit of a “dust up” in our industry last week. It started on July 7 when The Wall Street Journal ran a front-page story titled “401(k) Law Suppresses Saving for Retirement” (a story that is still, as I write on Saturday morning, on WSJ.com’s most popular listing). And, no, that article wasn’t talking about discrimination testing rules, the imposition of annual contribution limits, talk of a mandatory limit on loans, or the imposition of mandatory annuitization of distributions. Rather, it was talking about…automatic enrollment. The report claimed that “40% of new hires at companies with automatic enrollments are socking away less money than they would if left to enroll voluntarily,” citing data from the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI). The problem, according to the report, was that “[m]ore than two-thirds of companies set contribution rates at 3% of salary or less, unless an employee chooses otherwise.” Well, duh. That, as they say,...