How ERISA Litigators Strengthen Plan Compliance and Risk Management: One-on-One with Jeb Gerth
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - Trends in Recordkeeper Consolidation and Due Diligence
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - Exploring the Value of Qualified Default Investment Alternatives
The Form 5500: What All Employers and Plan Administrators Need to Know and How to Avoid Costly Fines
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - Cautionary Tales for Preapproved Plan Documents
DOL Clarifies Timing of Lifetime Income Disclosures in Benefit Statements
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - Payroll Integration for Plan Sponsors
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - Plan Administrators’ 2020 Year-End Checklist
Cutting Costs With Employee Benefit Plans (Part 5 of 5) – Implementation
Cutting Costs With Employee Benefit Plans (Part 4 of 5) – Retirement Plan Costs
Cutting Costs With Employee Benefit Plans (Part 3 of 5) – Medical Benefit Costs
Cutting Costs With Employee Benefit Plans (Part 2 of 5) – Identifying Potential Targets
Cutting Costs With Employee Benefit Plans (Part 1 of 5) – Using Benefit Plans to Save Money
CARES Act – Retirement Plan Distributions and Loans: Troutman Sanders and Pepper Hamilton COVID-19 Issues for Employers Podcast Series
Blakes Continuity Podcast: COVID-19: The Regulatory Impact on Pensions
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - Plan Administrators’ 2019 Year-End Checklist
As a plan fiduciary, I still can’t believe it. A Third Party Administrator (TPA) we terminated was trying to hold us up for valuations and a Form 5500 we paid for, as part of, annual administration. It was $80,000....more
As an ERISA attorney, my retainer agreements are pretty straight and clear. Governed by the laws that govern attorney behavior, I have no choice. Yet, Third Party Administrators (TPAs) don’t have guidelines to live by. ...more
Being an ERISA attorney for a couple of third-party administration (TPA) firms when I first started helps you develop a sense of humor because there are too many people I was associated with who had absolutely zero training...more
It’s great that the Department of Labor (DOL) has finally embraced the electronic disclosure of important ERISA notices. It took them a long time, but when your business is trying to protect participant rights, this is what...more
Retirement plans with more than 100 participants require a CPA audit for their Form 5500. However, small plans with less than 100 participants may sometimes require an audit. This often happens when more than 5% of the Plan’s...more
In any service industry, the quality of service and price can be far and wide. While people say that I focus way too much on the workings on the third-party administration (TPA) business, I have more experience in that field...more
I’ve spent 21 years as an ERISA attorney and took some classes when I was getting my LLM and I learn something new about retirement plans every day. As a financial advisor, you likely didn’t have the training to be an ERISA...more
A Plan Provider's Guide On How Not To Die (Sorry Lois). Get busy living or get busy dying. I started my own practice about 9 years ago because I was involuntarily liberated from my position as an associate at a...more
Chutzpah is nerve, shameless audacity. The best example of chutzpah is someone who kills their parents and asks the court for leniency because they’re an orphan. I’ve been in this business of ours for the past 20 plus...more
401(k) Options That Must Be Obligatory For Plan Sponsors. They need to be obligatory. Buying a car isn't easy because it's confusing with the different option packages and trims. Sometimes I jokingly ask whether a...more
New Year's Resolutions For 401(k) Plan Sponsors. Get off on the right foot for 2019. A New Year's resolution is a tradition in which a person resolves to change and undesired trait or behavior to either improve their...more
There are so many articles for plan sponsors (I’ve written quite a few) where they go on and on about what plan sponsors need for a successful 401(k) plan. Rather than go into a whole diatribe, here is a Reader’s Digest of...more
As an ERISA attorney, 3(16) plan administrator, and sponsor of several 401(k) plans that needed an audit completed by October 15th to file the Form 5500 on-time, I will have to say I’ve noticed a discrepancy among audit...more
The Help Plan Providers Need And What They Don't. Avoid the people who want to sell you everything. When you're in business as a retirement plan provider, you will see that there is a surge of humanity that wants to...more
When it comes to drafting plan documents, I always say K.I.S.S.: keep it simple, stupid....more
I hate to do things last minute. I passed three different state bar exams and I never studied the day before. So when it comes to being an ERISA attorney and/or ERISA §3(16) plan administrator for a few handfuls of 401(k)...more
Over the last few years, we’ve seen the proliferation of companies offering ERISA §3(16) services. This is a natural growth of advisors offering ERISA §3(38) services, so 3(16) was a great way for third-party administrates...more
Plan Sponsors Need To Fix Their Plan Errors Now! You can't wait, fix it now! For most of us, when we don't feel well, we go to the doctor. We don't wait until things get worse, we take care of things because there...more
As a retirement plan provider, you meet a potential client and you just do so well in the meeting that you think there should be no way that you’re going to lose this prospect. Yet you get the call that a competing provider...more
A few weeks back, I wrote an article about 401(k) hustlers you should watch out for and I mentioned the caveat of using a payroll provider as your 401(k)’s third party administrator (TPA). I posted it on LinkedIn and someone...more
I worked for a third party administrator (TPA) for almost 5 years and one of my favorite things about the boss there was that he just wanted to cut to the chase. We had an actuary who developed a speech im- pediment when he...more
While most of the news about 401(k) plan fiduciaries and their responsibilities is about plan expenses, plan investments, and participant education, there is very little topic about the one issue that is important that most...more
What was good yesterday might not be a good today. Asbestos was a great fireproof building material until it was found to cause asbestosis and malignant mesothelioma Thalidomide was a great drug for morning sickness until it...more
When my wife and I bought our house, there were quite a few things that the previous owner forgot to tell us such as the fact they never bothered to pull the pipes from the dental office run by a previous owner 20 years...more