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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.
Measuring the Value of Intensive Missing Participant Searches
Inevitably, situations arise when plan sponsors must perform more intensive missing participant searches, where additional search resources are applied to improve the quality of the search, over and above what an e-Search can deliver. More-intensive missing participant searches can increase the quality of search results, but by how much? As it turns out, quite a bit. RCH’s Tom Hawkins examines almost 7,000 intensive searches and identifies significant improvements in search quality that can result.
Four Compelling Reasons for Plan Sponsors to Adopt Auto Portability
Writing in the Consolidation Corner blog, RCH's Tom Hawkins offers plan sponsors four compelling reasons to adopt auto portability. Hawkins cites the groundswell of support that auto portability has already received from the retirement industry, from legislators and regulators, as well as the thousands of plan sponsors who have already adopted, advising plan sponsors that they need not fear "being first" when they adopt. By adopting, they'll be acting in their plan's best interests and in the interests of its participants, who've expressed a strong desire for the new feature.
Two Saver’s Match Resources Now Available
Retirement Clearinghouse (RCH) has launched two new Saver’s Match resources, which offer plan sponsors, plan providers and participants with consolidated information about the Saver’s Match program, as well as a new saver-focused tool – the Saver’s Match Estimator – which will calculate an estimated matching contribution under the program. RCH encourages everyone to use the new tools, and to share them within their network.
Auto Portability Adoption Picks Up Steam
RCH EVP Neal Ringquist examines recent developments surrounding auto portability, which is now in the early stages of plan sponsor adoption. Ringquist writes that plan sponsor adoption “has begun to pick up steam” and shares results that “over 3,300 plans – representing almost 1.4 million active participants” have adopted auto portability via their PSN-affiliated recordkeepers. Ringquist credits PSN recordkeepers with leading the way, while citing a recent article about the Unum Group that provided an innovative plan sponsor’s perspective on the new feature. Looking ahead, Ringquist envisions auto portability becoming a “must-have” feature for sponsors and recordkeepers and expects “more adoption ahead – a lot more.”
The Risky Business of Cashing Out Plan Balances Below $1,000
Writing in the RCH Consolidation Corner blog, Tom Hawkins examines the “risky business” of automatically cashing out sub-$1,000 balances of separated participants. Hawkins writes that the practice, “may seem like an expedient approach to rid a plan of small balances” but “carries undesirable side effects for both the plan and for its participants” including uncashed distribution checks and unnecessary cashout leakage. The best approach, continues Hawkins, is to “adopt auto portability, which delivers all of the benefits but none of the flaws of old-school automatic rollovers.”
Taking Stock of the Saver’s Match: The Promise and The Challenges
Slated to begin operation with the 2027 tax year, the Saver’s Match program is coming more sharply into focus. While research is still ongoing, the picture being revealed is one of massive potential to increase retirement savings and to help close the minority wealth gap. These benefits may not come easily, given the sheer size of the population affected by the Saver’s Match, and the challenges that the program could face in getting up-to-speed. At the Annual iOme Challenge Forum, held on 6/20/24 by the Women’s Institute for a Secure Retirement (WISER), RCH & PSN President and CEO Spencer Williams, along with Morningstar’s Jack VanDerhei, took stock of both the promise and the challenges represented by the Saver’s Match program.
Safe-Harbor IRAs Don’t Offer a Long-Term Saving Solution for Plan Participants
Writing in the RCH Consolidation Corner blog, RCH and PSN President & CEO Spencer Williams reflects on the 20-year history of safe harbor IRAs, which were intended to be "a temporary solution to the problem of too many small, stranded accounts in defined contribution plans." Williams provides readers with examples of the dysfunction that has occurred when safe harbor IRAs have failed to act as long-term repositories of savings, or worse, when participants cash out completely. With the advent of auto portability, Williams maintains that the new auto feature will "allow participants to maximize the time retirement savings are invested in their plan accounts—and minimize the time those balances are languishing in underperforming safe-harbor IRAs along the journey to retirement."
The Truth About Old-School Automatic Rollovers
Writing in the Consolidation Corner blog, RCH’s Tom Hawkins takes on “old-school” automatic rollover programs which produce massive amounts of cashout leakage and strand millions of participants’ balances in safe harbor IRAs. While old-school automatic rollovers have one foot in the past, Hawkins writes: “automatic rollovers that incorporate auto portability are the way of the future, with the industry-led Portability Services Network leading the way forward.” For plan sponsors, contends Hawkins, “auto portability delivers all the plan optimization features of old-school automatic rollover programs but goes one key step further” by automatically rolling-in eligible balances for new plan participants.
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