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401(k) Daily Valuation Administrator
Swerdlin & Company
in GA

Class Action ERISA Lawyer
Washington DC Plaintiffs Firm
in DC

Account Executive
Principal Financial Group
in GA

Paralegal Team Lead
UNITE HERE HEALTH
in IL

401(k) Daily Relationship Manager
Swerdlin & Company
in GA

Plan Services Consultant
OneAmerica Financial Partners, Inc
in IN

Actuarial Client Services Consultant
OneAmerica Financial Partners
in IN

Account Specialist (Health & Benefits)
Aon
in IL

Retirement Analyst
BayCare Health System
in FL

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Retirement Plan Loans to Participants
RECORDED
(IRS [Internal Revenue Service])

Healthcare Reform Fees and Taxes: PCOR, Reinsurance, HIT, and Cadillac
June 24, 2015 WEBCAST
(Hill, Chesson & Woody)

Reinsurance Payments Series I
June 25, 2015 WEBCAST
(Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services [CMS])

Voluntary Fiduciary Correction Program (VFCP) Workshop
July 9, 2015 in NY
(Employee Benefits Security Administration [EBSA], U.S. Department of Labor)

Invoicing & Collections Process for Reinsurance, Risk Adjustment and Risk Corridors (3Rs) Issuers
July 15, 2015 WEBCAST
(Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services [CMS])

Fundamentals of 401(k) and Other Qualified Plans - Minneapolis
July 21, 2015 in MN
(SunGard Relius)

Five Most Dangerous Trends in Employee Wellness And What You Can Do to Avoid Them
July 23, 2015 WEBCAST
(Thompson Information Services)

Voluntary Fiduciary Correction Program and Abandoned Plan Program Workshop
August 26, 2015 in KY
(Employee Benefits Security Administration [EBSA], U.S. Department of Labor)

Health Benefits Laws Compliance Assistance Seminar
September 14, 2015 in PA
(Employee Benefits Security Administration [EBSA], U.S. Department of Labor)

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IRS Employee Plans News 2015-7, June 23, 2015
Topics: [1] Worksheets and explanations for the second Cycle E plan language; [2] New VCP Submission Kit for correcting contribution failures for money purchase pension and target benefit plans; [3] Determination letter review process for the second Cycle E and beyond; [4] Penalty relief program for Form 5500-EZ late filers; [5] Fix-It Guides updated: 403(b) Plan Fix-It Guide, SEP Fix-It Guide, SIMPLE IRA Plan Fix-It Guide; [6] Suspension of benefits under the Multiemployer Pension Reform Act of 2014: Temporary Regulations, Application procedures and model notice (Rev. Proc. 2015-34). (Internal Revenue Service [IRS])

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The Top Ten Fiduciary Errors
"[1] Failure to identify all fiduciaries ... [2] Failure to provide proper fiduciary liability insurance ... [3] Failure to understand the types of third-party fiduciaries ... [4] Insufficient training of fiduciaries ... [5] Failure to take appropriate actions and document such actions ... [6] Spending too much time on plan investments ... [7] Spending too much time on the wrong investments ... [8] Failure to follow the plan's investment policy statement ... [9] Failure to properly benchmark plan expenses ... 10. Spending too little time on participant outcomes." (Cammack Retirement Group)

Six Questions to Ask at Your Next Investment Committee Meeting
"[1] Do we really need to have all these funds on the menu? ... [2] Are there less expensive share classes available for the funds on our investment menu?... [3] How much are our participants paying for this plan?... [4] What services are we buying with those fees?... [5] Do we all need to be on this committee?... [6] Who's taking notes?" (Nevin Adams, for National Association of Plan Advisors [NAPA])

Asset Allocation's Greatest Failure: Short-Term Investing
"In practice, believers of asset allocation have a choice: either use historical data to project future returns or use their own estimates. Since the latter reeks of the alchemy of market timing (which most serious investors and nearly all academics agree has all the credibility of a perpetual motion machine -- it just doesn't work), this limits the believer of asset allocation to using historical data. In fact, most of the asset allocation software used by professionals and non-professionals (and, dare we say, robo-advisors) employs this approach." (Fiduciary News)

SEC to Examine Retirement Advice
"[T]he Securities and Exchange Commission examinations will evaluate issues such as whether registrants, advisers and broker-dealers are selecting the appropriate account for their client and whether they are performing due diligence on investment options.... Among other data, the examiners will review registrants' sales and account selection practices in light of the fees charged, the services provided to investors, and the expenses of such services ... Potential conflicts of interest will be studied, the agency said." (InsuranceNewsNet.com)

The Guy Who Quit Goldman Sachs in a New York Times Op-Ed Now Wants to Fix Your 401(k)
"Last month, [Greg] Smith joined Blooom, an Overland Park, Kansas-based firm ... [and] will serve as the firm's president.... Blooom's main offering is a service that, for $15 a month, will take control of your 401(k) and manage it for you. (The fee drops to $1 a month for 401(k) accounts of less than $20,000.) The company uses a computer program to devise an asset allocation (bonds vs. stocks, for example) for each of its clients. It then looks at the investment options in your 401(k) plan, deciphers what they are, and separates those choices into categories. Blooom then, essentially, picks out the fund in each category with the lowest fees and puts your money there. Blooom's investing algorithm doesn't seem to take into account how those particular investments have performed." (Fortune)

Financial Knowledge and 401(k) Investment Performance: A Case Study
"[The authors] explore whether investors who are more financially knowledgeable earn more on their retirement plan investments compared to their less sophisticated counterparts... [T]he most financially knowledgeable investors: (a) held 18 percentage points more stock than their least knowledgeable counterparts; (b) could anticipate earning 8 basis points per month more in excess returns; (c) had 40% higher portfolio volatility; and (d) held portfolios with about 38% less idiosyncratic risk, as compared to their least savvy counterparts." (Pension Research Council, Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania; free registration required)

Outrunning the Bear
"Pension investors often face the challenge of meeting two conflicting objectives: delivering high absolute returns and managing risk relative to liabilities.... Reaching traditional absolute-return targets in the 7 to 8 percent range may be difficult, and even more so in the context of an appropriately diversified portfolio. Perhaps a more realistic goal is a relative one: outperforming the value of liabilities, by a smaller margin perhaps but with more diversification and less risk." (Institutional Investor)

How 401(k) Participants Can Avoid Sabotaging Their Returns
"Never, ever try to time the markets.... Never trade a 401(k) plan account.... Ignore the newsletters and their co-workers.... Never buy or sell a mutual fund for emotional reasons." (Lawton Retirement Plan Consultants)

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Raising the Bar on Target Date Due Diligence: Demographics Matter
"A fiduciary who chooses to use one or more of the target date fund evaluation tools available today is obligated to understand how the tool works, how it compares to its peers, and whether its design will serve the needs of the plan participants." (Manning & Napier)

Tackling the Challenge of 401(k)s for Small Businesses
"[T]hanks to technological advancements and a plan design inspired by the latest behavioral finance research, a 401(k) plan is now within the reach of a local hair salon, small manufacturing firm or start-up tech company.... The ForUsAll plan automatically enrolls employees at a 6% salary deferral rate (double the typical initial contribution rate) with an automatic escalation of 1% per year up to the federal maximum of 15%. Employees are automatically defaulted into a Vanguard target date fund appropriate for their age but can customize their investments from a broad selection of Vanguard index funds." (Investment News)

The Funding of State and Local Pensions: 2014-2018
"During 2014, public plans adopted new accounting standards for reporting purposes but continued to use the traditional standards for funding purposes. The traditional funded ratio rose from 72 percent in 2013 to 74 percent in 2014 -- the first improvement since the financial crisis. Required contributions continued to climb in 2014, but plans stepped up their payments from 82 percent to 88 percent of the required amount. The outlook for the next several years suggests continued steady improvement in funding unless plans experience lower than assumed asset returns." (Center for Retirement Research at Boston College)

Text of Treasury Department Notice and Request for Public Comment: Treasury Public Engagement Pages
"The Department of the Treasury is issuing this notice to inform the public and solicit comments about a new method it is using to collect information and opinions posted on social media platforms. Relying on Treasury-generated 'hashtags' and other social media identifiers, Treasury is aggregating public posts relating to Treasury activities and missions from third-party social media websites. Treasury is collecting and, in some cases, republishing this material to facilitate public engagement and awareness of Treasury and bureau initiatives. In this manner, social media will enable Treasury to interact with the public in effective and meaningful ways; encourage the broad exchange of and centrally locate a variety of viewpoints on proposed and existing Treasury missions; and educate the general public about evolving Treasury initiatives.... This initiative will launch upon publication of this notice. Treasury may make adjustments to the program based upon timely comments received." (U.S. Department of the Treasury)

Is the IRS Stepping Up Nonqualified Audits?
"[F]or certain types of plans (mostly non-account balance plans), there is much in the way of actuarial calculations that determines potential tax liabilities. Frankly, we don't know what was intended. We tend to reference the FICA regulations, but even there ... the regulations are not prescriptive. Section 409A is a mess." (Benefits and Compensation with John Lowell)

IRS Releases Nonqualified Deferred Compensation Audit Techniques Guide
"[D]espite the first update since 2005, the new Audit Technique Guide (ATG) leaves the impression that 409A is only a minor concern for the IRS auditors of nonqualified deferred compensation plans. However, maybe that is the message IRS is trying to send to us, to wit, in your obsession with 409A, don't ignore all of the other rules that apply to nonqualified deferred compensation plans." (Winston & Strawn LLP)

Top CEO Compensation Soars, and Why We Do Not Look at 'Average CEOs'
"[This] analysis, which shows that CEO pay grew far faster than pay of the top 0.1 percent of wage earners (those earning more than 99.9 percent of wage earners), indicates that CEO compensation growth does not simply reflect the increased value of highly paid professionals in a competitive race for skills ... CEO compensation in 2013 ... was 5.84 times greater than wages of the top 0.1 percent of wage earners, a ratio 2.66 points higher than the 3.18 ratio that prevailed over the 1947-1979 period." (Economic Policy Institute)

SouthWest Benefits Association Announces Newly Elected Board of Directors and Officers SouthWest Benefits Association

Michael Kreps Re-joins Groom Law Group, Expanding Premier Policy Practice Groom Law Group

Overall Client Loyalty Shows Slight Declines As Ratings For Key Client Touch Points Lag According To Chatham Partners? 2015 Provider Loyalty Index Chatham Partners

FTB Advisors, Inc. is Certified for Fiduciary Excellence Centre for Fiduciary Excellence [CEFEX]

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