ERISA Advisory and Fiduciary Governance

It’s our duty to act in the best interest of your employees. We take that seriously.

That’s why we offer both investment advisory and stewardship services to keep your organization ERISA-compliant.

Investment Management

We believe in proactively managing your company’s retirement plan. Here are some of the steps you can expect us to take:

• Assist in creating the plan’s Investment Policy Statement (IPS)
• Design the investment menu based on criteria outlined in the IPS
• Set benchmarks for monitoring investment performance according to the IPS criteria
• Continuously oversee the plan’s investments and document the oversight process
• Replace underperforming investments
• Design and distribute required participant communications about investments
• Provide a quarterly investment performance scorecard against the IPS goals
• Conduct a quarterly online meeting with our investment committee to review current market conditions, significant changes in our fund list, upcoming regulatory changes and more

Governance and Stewardship

An important role of a fiduciary advisor is to ensure sound governance and stewardship of your organization’s retirement plan. To do that, we have assembled a team of accredited investment professionals and credentialed plan consultants. In addition to the advisory tasks described above, we will:

• Help you form a retirement plan committee
• Help you develop a “best practices” program and process
• Train committee members on their fiduciary responsibilities
• Monitor and benchmark plan fees for all service providers

A Note About ERISA 3(38) and 3(21)

To most effectively manage the liability related to retirement plan investments, we provide ERISA 3(38) management services, which relieves the trustee and other named fiduciaries of this liability.

When serving as the investment manager under ERISA 3(38), we will:

• Have complete discretion and control over the plan’s investment options
• Accept full responsibility for investment decisions and related liability affecting the plan

If you prefer the more limited protection offered under ERISA 3(21), we will:

• Provide investment consulting and advice to the retirement plan committee
• Recommend a menu of investment options based on your IPS criteria
• Monitor the investment choices and notify the committee when a change is prudent