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
I f you’re thinking of hiring your payroll provider to also serve as your 401(k) plan’s third-party administrator (TPA), stop. Think again. Then think again harder. I’ve been an ERISA attorney for more than 25 years. In that...more
It’s easier to steal when no one is looking. In Ohio, a former plan participant is facing criminal charges for a fraudulent hardship request....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
I knew Jeff Richie from Vantage Benefits, spoke to him a couple of times ago, and wrote an article for his company regarding fiduciary services. Like with Matt Hutcheson, Jeff Richie was embezzling the money clients entrusted...more
My experience at law school could probably be summed up by one event. For first-year law students, there is an event that everyone participates in and it’s called Moot Court where students argue a fictional appellate case in...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
I was an attorney for a third party administrator (TPA) in 2007 and one of our plan administrator said that a specific 401(k) plan we were the TPA for had a 7 year graded vesting schedule for matching contributions. The only...more
When I was 13, I bought my very first computer, an Apple IIe for $2,000, which would be about $4,760 in 2019 money. This year, I bought an Apple MacBook Pro for about $1,800....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
Health and Welfare Plan Update - It is 9:00 p.m., do you know where your health plan data is? As IT systems continue to expand, and data is accessed, moved and stored in many new and different ways, the Office for Civil...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
This is Spinal Tap has the great line that “there is a fine line between being clever and stupid.” The same can be said with plan provisions that are what I call: “out of the box.” I call it out of the box because it reminds...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
With plan administration, there are so many mistakes that can be made and most of the time, it’s the fault of the plan sponsor and the third party administrator (TPA). However, there are many times were the error so explicit,...more
The To-Do List For 401(k) Plans Now: 2018-2019 Edition. Do it now. Being a retirement plan sponsor is a tremendous responsibility and the problem is that most plan sponsors don't understand that. Plan sponsors often act...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
Classic 401(k) Plan Sponsors Mistakes That Often Leads To Costly Fixes. They're classic. What makes a classic? Whether it's a 1963 Chevrolet Corvette or the Sgt Pepper album, it usually means that it's the highest in...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
I guess my comments regarding revenue sharing is a bit sarcastic, but I think accurate. While revenue sharing payments from mutual funds to TPA to help defray the costs of administration of a plan sponsor’s plan is legal, it...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