Risk and Reward
Why Evaluating Your Workplace Retirement Plan Makes Sense
The Risk
When you’re focused on running your business, you may not take the time to stop and think about the liability your company faces in its 401k plan. In fact, your workplace retirement plan may be your company’s greatest single source of potential business liability.
Lawsuits claiming violations of the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act, or ERISA, are on the rise nationwide. Wal-Mart and Merrill Lynch, for example, recently agreed to a $13.5 million settlement of a lawsuit that claimed a breach of fiduciary duties in the retailer’s 401k plan. But you don’t have to be a large company like Wal-Mart to have an employee drag you into court.
“Employers and plans of all sizes are vulnerable,” lawyers note in a Chubb white paper on ERISA risks. “Particularly in times of economic transition – when layoffs, workforce adjustments and corporate mergers and acquisitions are more likely to occur – more plan participants are willing to step forward as ERISA plaintiffs. ERISA contains a discretionary statutory fees provision that, as applied, almost always provides attorneys’ fees to the plaintiffs when they prevail, but not to the defendant. This provision provides additional incentives to plaintiffs’ lawyers to bring such suits.”
As a Registered Investment Advisor, Bradway Financial can shoulder your workplace retirement plan’s fiduciary liability – shifting the burden away from you and your business.
Allow our retirement team to provide a complimentary, no-obligation assessment of your workplace retirement plan. We’ll alert you to any compliance risk you are currently exposed to as the trustee of your company’s retirement plan.
The Reward
We will craft a workplace retirement plan that contributes to the success of your company and its employees – all while maximizing benefits for owners, executives and staff.
As an independent firm, we have several advantages over the big Wall Street companies and their broker-dealers. Specifically, we can:
- Offer a wide range of tried-and-true investment options – not just a short menu of 401k funds from a single investment company
- Manage the investments in your plan
- Provide independent investment advice, recommendations and ongoing education for plan participants – helping to increase plan participation
- Shop among a wide range of third-party administrators (TPA) and custodians
- Unbundle plan expenses, providing transparency on all costs
We can work with your current TPA and plan designer. Or we can bring in our own experts. Either way, we make sure we get to know your business and your goals. And we will work with you to ensure that the plan is a good fit for your business. Once your plan is in place, we will regularly evaluate it so that it keeps pace with your business and changes in regulations.
Learn more about what makes Bradway different. And check out our B2B flier.
