BCG Blog

As it gets ever easier to collect data and run reports on your clients and harness that data into automated reports you may feel either savvy or slathered in numbers. How do you ensure that you remain in the first category?

Retirement advisor, here is your opportunity to build relationships and become that trusted source for plan participants. Here are some of the ways you can help plan participants improve their retirement investment results:

Plan participants think they’re ready for retirement. It’s up to retirement advisors to make sure they are.

Many advisors have been focusing their attention on baby boomers entering retirement. But, it could be the Generation Xers (those between ages 35 and 50) that need the most help. Gen Xers are in the prime of their earning years, but have the worst financial habits.

With a simplified process, retirement advisors can improve enrollment and pave the way for better plan participant outcomes.

Who knew retirement planning could be the key to employee loyalty? How retirement advisors can help plan sponsors improve retention.

What will happen to Social Security benefits in the event of one spouse’s death, and how can plan participants prepare for the unexpected death of a spouse or partner? By knowing their options in advance.

Balancing might seem like shelter in a storm of numbers and predictions for the more risk adverse investor. But then, how often to rebalance? Or a more complicated question, how to factor rebalancing into plans based on algorithms or robo-investing.

Lately, there has been a rise in financial investment platforms aimed at women. Conventional wisdom held that women invested too conservatively, too late, and too little. If so, then why the rise of new platforms?

Social Security should not be a one-time conversation between advisors and clients. Here are some ways to help plan participants get the most from their benefits.

More businesses are relying on cloud computing. Yet, DOL has not produced guidelines for protecting personal identifying information except to acknowledge that it must be protected. Enterprise cloud computing may provide answers.

It’s no wonder retirement advisors struggle to get millennial employees on track with retirement investing. Here are a few ways you can help millennial investors connect emotionally with their retirement.

While some online sources on personal finance urge readers to take loans from their 401ks, rather than cashing out the securities or bonds in them, those loans may need to have careful structuring.

While research suggests that only 18% of small business have 401k plans, almost 60% of small businesses lack a succession plan.

Advisors should understand the investor’s liquidity – what need the investor has for the income and from what other sources will that investor be able to find easily liquidated funds

Corporate compliance and risk management evaluates internal policies, externally imposed regulations and reporting requirements, and synthesizes both with an eye towards performance and efficiency. The same holds for Investment Monitoring and Oversight

Getting in front of your plan sponsors and participants at a time when they’re seeking specific advice elevates your services and builds some serious loyalty.

No matter what the current temperature of public opinion is on 401ks, it may be worthwhile to review options with your client to make sure that their needs for liquidity, tax benefits, ease of administration, social concerns and rate of return are met.

During her employment, Ms. Rizo participated in two company sponsored retirement plans subject to ERISA. Both plans’ summary plan descriptions provided very specific instructions as to how a participant designates a beneficiary. Ruiz v. Publix Super Markets

Even in the best of scenarios, retirement plan participants could be doing everything right and still be missing their retirement income targets. There are ways for retirement advisors to help plan participants boost their portfolios within the confines of a group plan offering menu. Here are a few methods advisors can bring to the table.

The intention behind ERISA was to ensure that those who manage retirement plans do so to benefit the plan participants and make good choices about investing. Those drafting the law defined certain individuals involved with retirement plans as fiduciaries to impose the duties of prudence and loyalty, specifically those regarding revealing conflicts of interest, on those involved in advising retirement funds.

While employers complain about the mountains of paperwork involved in plan administration, their employees complain about not understanding the offerings. Employees who feel that they don’t understand a plan or its benefits may reduce the amount of assets in the plan by not enrolling at a maximum contribution or not enrolling at all.

Online retirement investment advice is rampant – from expert advice to personal advice with no real qualifying data. And your plan participants are using that information to make key retirement decisions. With all the noise regarding retirement, how do you help plan participants sort through it all?

Fee or commission? That’s the question that continues to be debated in the financial services industry as advisors list their reasons for supporting one over the other. With more investors seeking the fee-based commission model, how can advisors know when it’s right for their practice? 

Over the past several years, a technique for financing new business ventures using funds from an IRA or qualified plan has gained increasing popularity. The IRS has cautioned against the pitfalls of using a plan or IRA in this fashion.