Consolidation Corner Blog

Consolidation Corner is the Retirement Clearinghouse (RCH) blog, and features the latest articles and bylines from our executives, addressing important retirement savings portability topics.


Aug
19
2015

Reducing the Burden of Missing Participants

Whenever I am meeting with a plan sponsor, TPA or recordkeeper for the first time, I ask about returned mail related to missing participants; and almost every time I get "the look" - The look and/or eye roll that instantly says that returned mail is definitely a problem. The entire retirement industry is all-too-familiar with returned mail related to missing participants. In addition to the money wasted on materials and mailing costs, missing participants create administrative burdens and increase the plan's fiduciary liability risk. So, what is a fiduciary to do?

Aug
19
2015

What To Look For In A Roll-In Service Provider

Warren Cormier, CEO of Boston Research Technologies, recently published a research study that revealed that a large majority of plan participants are receptive to consolidating their retirement savings accounts in their current plans.

Aug
11
2015

Automatically Moving Mandatory Distributions Forward

The mandatory distribution-to-Safe Harbor IRA plan feature as commonly utilized today was conceived in 2001 and launched in 2005 with good intentions, and for valid reasons. A mobile workforce, combined with a lack of retirement savings portability, had created a burgeoning problem for plan sponsors.

Aug
04
2015

What Participants' Distribution Decisions Are Telling Us

That's changing, as Neal Ringquist explains.

Jul
30
2015

Leaving Your 401(k) Savings Behind Will Cost You!

In his July 30th, 2015 MarketWatch article titled, Leaving Your 401K Behind When Changing Jobs Will Cost You, RCH's CEO Spencer Williams gives sage advice to America's mobile workforce, urging job-changing retirement savers to take the initiative and to consolidate their retirement savings.

Jul
27
2015

Consolidation: The Missing Piece of the Retirement Game Plan

Today, it's a commonly-accepted practice for plan sponsors to focus on three major initiatives in order to promote retirement adequacy: participation, saving and diversification. While these concepts are proven, the emerging best practice is to incorporate the principle of consolidation, so that plan sponsors will begin to focus on participation, consolidation, saving and diversification.

Jul
17
2015

Safe Harbor IRAs Are Not Always Safe

Plan sponsors can help themselves and their participants over the long term by rolling balances of $5,000 or less from inactive participants into safe harbor IRAs. However, for various reasons discussed below, many safe harbor IRAs do not live up to their name and could leave sponsors with unexpected fiduciary liability.

Jul
16
2015

SOC Examinations Designed To Provide Comfort

Say you are a plan sponsor, and you are using (or seeking to use) external services for: Mandatory distributions / automatic rollovers, Account consolidation, Assisting terminated participants with their distribution options, Locating missing plan participants...

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