Empowering retirement plan sponsors
RetireAware provides strategic consulting and plan management services in retirement markets
Our clients include some of the largest public K-12 and higher education systems in the U.S., retirement plan recordkeepers, a major broker-dealer, third-party plan administrators and private retirement plan sponsors.
Making the most of your employer-sponsored DC plans
Our work with plan sponsors focuses on developing retirement plan service models that protect against provider conflicts of interest. These conflicted providers can undermine participant retirement savings by promoting higher-cost-in-plan and non-plan products and services.
Here are some ways RetireAware has helped plan sponsors
Conflict of Interest Audit
A major K-12 school district had questions about the activities of providers in its multiple-service provider-defined contribution plans. Our conflict of interest audit provided a clearer picture of how commissioned representatives were promoting non-plan products–and pointed the way for contractual changes prohibiting activities that undermined the employer-sponsored plans.
Reining in Excess Fees
A major K-12 school district sought to better understand the financial cost to participants of rolling over distributions into retail proprietary products offered by plan service providers. Our analysis documented 10-year costs of over $8,500 per participant and provided the insight needed to negotiate provider contracts and move to a single service provider structure.
RFP Support
A public university retirement system was developing an RFP for recordkeeping services and sought to ensure that conflicts of interest did not undermine their plans. We helped them prepare a section of the RFP that identified potential conflicts and alerted bidders to practices that would not be acceptable.
Stewardship Reports
A third-party administrator sought to add value to its services. We developed a stewardship report to provide clients with a clear picture of how providers are performing and of their plan health.
Allen Steinberg | Principal
Allen Steinberg is a national authority on retirement plans and the Chief Legal Officer of RetireAware. Allen has over 35 years of experience providing employers with advice, ideas and support for a broad range of benefit plans. For the past fifteen years Allen increasingly focused on the unique challenges of the 403(b) market.
During his career, Allen has been an associate with a major Chicago law firm, a partner at a global consulting and actuarial firm, and the owner of a law firm focused solely on employee benefits. Allen has written for a range of publications, including Benefits Quarterly, The Journal of Employee Ownership Law and Finance, The Journal of Pension Benefits, Compensation & Benefits Review, and HR Magazine. Allen is also a regular speaker at regional and national benefits conferences.
Staying on top of rapidly changing developments
Empower and Vanguard Penalized for Undisclosed Conflicts
Undisclosed Conflicts of Interest: Will Another $25 Million in Fines Change Anything?
Doors to Swing Open for Alternative Investments
On Aug. 7, President Trump signed an executive order intended to expand retirement plan investments into “alternative” assets (including private equity and crypto). This executive order appears to mark a turning point in a campaign for these alternative assets to access the $30 trillion currently accumulated in the private (i.e., non-governmental) U.S. retirement system.
Tide of ERISA Litigation to Continue
A new Supreme Court ruling may further open the door to ERISA fiduciary claims.