ASPPA

Client Service Representative
Associated Pension Consultants
in CA

Pension/Retirement Plan Assistant to Administrator & Distribution and Loan Processing
Carnow & Associates, Ltd.
in IL

Assistant Administrator/Office Assistant
Delaware Valley Retirement in Ridley Park, PA
in PA

Senior Plan Compliance Specialist
Ohio National Financial Services
in OH

Director, DC Implementation
New York Life Retirement Plan Services
in MA

Post Your Job

View All Jobs

RSS Feed: All Jobs

Contributions, Section 415 and Post-severance
January 14, 2014 WEBCAST
(McKay Hochman Co., Inc.)

HMA Expert Roundtable
January 15, 2014 WEBCAST
(Health Management Associates)

Ethics for Benefits Professionals
January 21, 2014 in CA
(Western Pension & Benefits Council - San Diego Chapter)

Designated Roth Accounts and Roth Conversions
January 22, 2014 WEBCAST
(McKay Hochman Co., Inc.)

PBM Contracts: How to Use Audits and Market Checks to Improve Your Bottom Line
January 28, 2014 WEBCAST
(Atlantic Information Services, Inc)

COBRA Notices for Rookies: Informing Participants and Protecting the Plan
January 30, 2014 WEBCAST
(Thomson Reuters / EBIA)

The Future of the Small-Group Market: How Insurers Can Retain or Grow Their Small-Employer Business
January 30, 2014 WEBCAST
(Atlantic Information Services, Inc)

Top 10 Plan Designs for the Small Employer, and Creative Plan Corrections ? Kansas City
January 30, 2014 in KS
(SunGard Relius)

Health Savings Accounts
February 19, 2014 WEBCAST
(Lorman Education Services)

11th Annual World Health Care Congress (WHCC)
April 7, 2014 in MD
(World Congress)

Retirement Income Summit
May 12, 2014 in IL
(InvestmentNews)

View All Webcasts and Conferences

PBGC Premium Changes Require Sponsor Analysis, Action
"The 2012 flat-rate premium of $35 will have almost doubled by 2016. This per participant increase will likely accelerate the desire to reduce the number of participants in defined benefit plans. The effect of the resulting reduction in participants may mean that the amount of premiums sent to the PBGC is less than anticipated by those who wrote the law." (Cheiron)

[Advert.]

4 of 10 Deaths are going unreported by the SSA!

Are these your retirees? PBI's developed a GROUNDBREAKING Solution that fills-the-gap of missing records. Save time & money while identifying deaths even if NO DEATH RECORD EXISTS! Contact us at 415-482-9611 or inquiry@pbinfo.com for a free trial!

Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013 Increases Single-Employer Defined Benefit Plan Premiums
"[A table] shows the single-employer premiums for the 2013-2017 plan years, including the changes introduced by both MAP-21 and the Budget Act.... Notwithstanding the MAP-21 and Budget Act premium increases, it is possible that plan sponsors will see additional increases in the next several years. The Administration continues to seek further premium increases for the PBGC, including giving the PBGC the ability to adjust premiums itself based on risk, and PBGC deficits under both the single-employer and multiemployer plan programs continue to be a concern of the Administration and Congress." (Segal)

IRS Issues Final Regs on Suspending Safe Harbor Contributions During the Plan Year
"Unfortunately, many plan sponsors have already provided the safe harbor notice for the 2014 plan year to employees. Those plan sponsors may either revise and reissue the safe harbor notice or accept that safe harbor nonelective contributions can only be reduced or suspended in 2014 if the business is operating at an economic loss. Safe harbor notices issued for plan years beginning in 2015 should include the necessary information to permit a reduction or suspension of safe harbor contributions during the plan year in order to provide maximum flexibility for the plan sponsor." (EisnerAmper)

Under Deferential Review, Second Circuit Again Nixes Xerox's Use of Phantom Account to Offset Pension Benefits
"[Judge Rosemary S.] Pooler's ruling marks the third time the Second Circuit has weighed in on the case since it was originally filed in 2000. In 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the plan administrator's interpretation of the plan and execution of the offset was entitled to deference. In the instant ruling, the Second Circuit once again found that the plan administrator's interpretation was unreasonable, 'even with the deferential standard of review afforded to both the district court and the Plan Administrator.'" [ Frommert v. Conkright , No. 12-67-cv (2nd Cir. Dec. 23, 2013)] (Bloomberg BNA)

No Increase in Multiemployer PBGC Premiums in Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013
"The funding rules put in place by the Pension Protection Act of 2006 for multiemployer plans in financial difficulty are scheduled to expire, with certain exceptions, at the end of the 2014 plan year. Because of this deadline, Congress is likely to consider multiemployer plan legislation this year, which could provide a vehicle for additional premium increases. This could be particularly true for multiemployer plans both because they are the focus of the legislation and because their premiums were not increased in the Budget Act." (Segal)

[Advert.]

Premium Educational Event for Taft-Hartley Trustees

Attend FRA's Taft-Hartley Benefits Summit to effectively manage your fund's investments and ensure your members' health & welfare benefits remain top-notch. Feb. 10-11, 2014 - Lake Buena Vista, FL. Mention FMP164 during registration for 10% discount.

PBGC Single-Employer Premium Rates Increase Again: What Plan Sponsors Can Do
"For an underfunded plan, increasing pension plan contributions above amounts previously contemplated is the surest way to reduce the amount of the variable-rate premium payment. Organizations that do not wish to increase their level of contributions may be able to reduce their variable-rate premium payments by accelerating the timing of contributions. One way to reduce the flat-rate premium payment is to reduce the participant count by offering a lump-sum window to terminated vested participants." (Sibson Consulting)

Most Common 401(k) Retirement Plan Match Is Now Dollar-for-Dollar
"Two years ago, employers focused on specific features like automatic enrollment and auto-percentage boosts in worker contributions ... [P]lan sponsors are moving to the next level that will help employees improve their account balances.... For the first time since ... 1991, plan sponsors changed the formula for the 401(k) employer match. Today, the most common match is dollar-for-dollar on the first 6 percent workers save in their 401(k) plans. From 1991 to 2011, the most popular formula was employers contributing 50 cents for each dollar employees contributed, up to 6 percent." (Workforce; free registration required)

Pension Funding Ratio Climbs to 95.2% at Year-End 2013 (PDF)
Highlights: "[1] Combination of an 87-basis-point surge in interest rates and an 11.2% investment gain powers a historic year in pension funded status improvement. [2] 2013 ends with one-year funded status gain of $318 billion, making it the best year for pension plans in the 13-year history of the Milliman 100 [Pension Funding Index]. [3] Forecast for end of year 2014 and 2015." (Milliman)

Older Americans Shunning Retirement at 65 for Risky Startups
"Older Americans ... are increasingly shunning retirement to start companies because they see job opportunities limited after age 55, don't have enough savings to retire comfortably or want to work for themselves. People from ages 55 to 64 started 23.4 percent of companies in 2012, up from 14.3 percent of new entrepreneurs in 1996[.]" (Bloomberg)

PBGC Hopes to Connect Retirees with More Than $280 Million in Unclaimed Pensions
"Across the country, there are more than 31,000 people who haven't claimed pension benefits they are owed. Those unclaimed pensions are now north of $280 million, with individual benefits ranging from 12 cents to almost $1 million." (Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation [PBGC])

Quebec's New Pension Reform Proposals: Effective Solutions in the Works?
"The most ambitious proposal in the government's action plan is certainly the attempt to establish a framework for restructuring DB plans. The restructuring process would be divided in four stages over a period of no more than two years according to the action plan.... With respect to DB plans in the municipal and university sector, the government intends to impose a 50/50 cost-sharing arrangement between employers and employees.... [T]arget benefit plans have unfortunately been left out of the government's action plan. While the private sector working group may try to bring this proposal to the table, the current government appears to have little appetite for this new type of pension plan at the moment[.]" (Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP)

The Hero in All of Us: We All Believe We Can Beat the Average
"A [recent article] provides a thought-provoking analysis of what active trading and market-timing can do to a portfolio; it's not a pretty picture for anyone without discipline. The actual 5-year returns for young target-date fund (TDF) investors (those with retirement dates of 2046 or later) were 30% higher than the average fund's total returns.... Plan sponsors should welcome these findings because it's an indication that participants could be better served with a TDF than if they were self-directed." (Vanguard)

Best Practice: Auto Enrollment
"By understanding our own worst habits, we can turn them around, so they work for rather than against us. That's the premise behind auto-enrollment and escalation features in plan design. In both cases, these auto-pilot programs require employees to opt OUT of recommended saving habits if they don't wish to participate, rather than requiring them to opt IN to participate. This dramatically increases the odds that employees will participate fully in their retirement plan programs." (Alliant Wealth Advisors)

We No Longer Have a Pension Crisis (Sort Of)
"Is our corporate pension crisis over? Sort of. [A] more accurate observation is that these things constantly move in cycles. Pensions looked underfunded in the early 1990s. Then they were way overfunded in the late 1990s. Then they became strained in the early 2000s. Then they were overfunded again by 2007. Next came the half-a-trillion-dollar shortfall last year, and today, we're back to fairly healthy levels. Funding calculations rely on assumptions. Those assumptions are usually wrong, and they can change dramatically overnight." (Morgan Housel of The Motley Fool, via USA TODAY)

INTRUST Retirement, ASC Trust Corporation and MBM Advisors Select SunGard?s Relius Mobile Participant to Enhance Client Service SunGard

Segal Group Announces New Canadian Business Leader The Segal Group

Segal Group Expands Corporate Health Benefits Consulting Practice in Midwest The Segal Group

MassMutual Retirement Services Introduces 2014 TPASMART Program MassMutual Retirement Services

ExpertPlan Announces New Institutional Partnership with 1st Global ExpertPlan

New Edge Server Solution From DST Helps Health Plans Comply With Affordable Care Act Requirements DST Health Solutions

US Labor Department Sues Bigler, Pa., Trucking Company to Recover Employee's Contributions and Payments to 401(k) Plan Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA), U.S. Department of Labor

Retirement LLC - Series Two Announces Completion of Merger with Capella Inc., the Largest Retirement Plan TPA Firm in South Dakota Retirement, LLC

View All Press Releases