Nevin's Data "Points"

  Last year, we took some family to the nearby Great Smoky Mountains in search of a waterfall of note — one that the guidebooks said was “readily accessible.”  That said, it took longer than we thought — we’d come up around a curve on the mountain trail, sure that it would be right there —– only to find (just) another curve. As we crossed folks coming back down from the falls, we’d (breathlessly) ask — “how much further is it?” — and while the responses were varied in terms of their accuracy and descriptive depth, they all added “it’s worth it.”  And you know what? It was.   Well, believe it or not, we’re nearing another kind of summit; a week from today we’ll be about halfway through the 2025 NAPA 401(k) Summit. It’s later than “normal” this year — and it’s been a long-time coming. Indeed, your Summit Steering committee has spent nearly a year putting this all together — leveraging YOUR input on topics, each has aligned themselves with a specific workshop — lit...

A few weeks back, an industry friend commented that, while we had certainly done a great job promoting the NAPA 401(k) Summit, that campaign hadn’t fully captured the essence of what makes “the Summit” different. Let me try here. There are, admittedly, a lot of conferences out there — and most promote — as we do — the great content, compelling keynotes, robust networking and great accommodations.  Some of them actually deliver on those promises. But since everyone says they do, how do you know the difference? The most obvious metric is, perhaps growth. Time-pressed advisors don’t waste their time going to conferences that don’t deliver the “goods.” The Summit has now been around for more than 20 years — and it’s challenging to sustain consistent growth over that long a stretch. That said, when I arrived here back in 2014, my first Summit “here,” we had about 1,300 attendees — and about a third were advisors.  And we were pretty darned proud of that ratio. B...

About a year ago, I was asked by an advisor if we had ever written anything about the potential pitfalls of hiring a relative as a plan advisor. We hadn’t, as it turns out, in no small part because some things just seem (painfully) obvious to me – but it resulted in a column  that, as I tried to point out at the time, was applicable to more than just familial relations. In recent weeks I have received similar requests: one from an advisor looking for something on the hazards of “tying” bank business to providing services to a retirement plan, and another looking for validation of the wisdom of using a qualified 401(k) advisor on a plan rather than a part-timer. Now, as someone who has been involved with ERISA and its fiduciary strictures his entire professional life, the responses to these questions are nearly self-evident. But let’s face it: Many, perhaps most, plan fiduciaries haven’t had that much exposure. Before making a decision to hire an advisor – or fo...

By any measure, the just-concluded NAPA 401(k) Summit  was an incredible, record-breaking success – with so much good content and networking that it was hard to choose between sessions. For those who weren’t able to be there – or who were unable to be everywhere at once – here are some random thoughts, insights and perspectives from that event. Health savings accounts could wind up being a big deal. One man’s loophole is another man’s incredibly important tax preference. The most important thing is not what happened, it’s what’s going to happen. Online gambling didn’t kill Vegas – and robo-advisors won’t kill 401(k) advice. In tax reform, everything is about trade-offs. 84% of Millennials surveyed want their investments to make the world better. Retirement plans are about 1/50th of what a plan sponsor does. Fees are still a major factor in landing a new client. Most people want to do the right thing, but they don’t know how to do it. When the market go...

Last week an advisor reached out to me looking for an article on a topic that comes up with remarkable frequency. Specifically, this advisor was dealing with a situation where a client was considering hiring their brother-in-law as the plan advisor, and wondered if we had ever written an article dealing with that situation. It’s not the first time I have been asked that, though sometimes it’s a cousin, a friend, a friend’s cousin, or a cousin’s friend. When that situation comes up – and come up it will – this is what I would tell them: If you’re a plan sponsor, you’re an ERISA fiduciary. If you have discretion in administering and managing the plan, or if you control the plan’s assets (such as choosing the investment options or choosing the firm that chooses those options), you are a fiduciary to the extent of that discretion or control. Ditto if you are able to hire individuals to control those assets – including your brother-in-law. Plan decisions you make as an ERISA fid...

With increasing regularity, the financial services industry pumps out surveys that purport to capture America’s sense of confidence regarding its readiness for retirement, at least on a financial footing. Mostly, however, they seem to focus on the symptom, rather than dealing with the underlying cause(s). However well-intentioned, these all seem designed to highlight a persistent strong undercurrent of concern — one that, certainly when juxtaposed against the generally disappointing preparation levels reported by respondents, seems completely warranted. Confidence about retirement is one thing, of course, and preparation something else, though the two are logically intertwined. That said, for those looking to shore up confidence levels, data from the granddaddy of such surveys — the non-partisan Employee Benefit Research Institute’s (EBRI) Retirement Confidence Survey — provides a roadmap: Work for an employer that offers a retirement plan. Data indicates that workers — even wo...