Plan Sponsor

The advent of generative artificial intelligence (AI) technology, such as ChatGPT, promises to transform the way businesses operate across sectors. Yet as quickly as novel applications and abilities surface, so does more evidence of the limitations and shortcomings of large language models. Plan sponsors can harness the immense power and utility of generative AI to provide better support to plan participants, but they must do so only after putting prudent processes and safeguards in place.

When you’re a plan fiduciary, you are, of course, prioritizing what ERISA law requires of you. You have a checklist of Must-Dos. But there is also a list of things that you can do proactively that will keep the plan—and plan fiduciaries—out of trouble. These tasks aren’t required by law, but they are certainly worth deciding whether you want them to be on your Should-Do list.

Across the nation, more and more workers are expecting to postpone retirement. In fact, a survey by the Nationwide Retirement Institute shows that 40% of older employees plan to retire later than anticipated because of inflation. And delays don’t just affect employees — more than a third of employers are concerned about increased health and benefit costs, negative impacts on their staff’s mental health and barriers to hiring new talent.

Various solutions exist to reinforce retirees’ ability to manage the drawdown of the wealth and effectively use their assets and maintain a comfortable standard of living. The portfolio management can be guided and informed by plan sponsor, but the participant has some key considerations regarding longevity and liquidity risks. Below, we break down these areas and provide a piece of communication for you to share with your participants to get them thinking their long-term plans for prudent utilization of the retirement assets.

Investment policy statements (IPSs) are commonplace among retirement plans — with around 83% providing one. And that number tends to be even higher among bigger plans. Financial powerhouse Goldman Sachs is one of the larger employers that doesn’t utilize an IPS. In fact, this was the subject of a recently dismissed lawsuit by a former Goldman employee, whose attorney alleged that the company violated ERISA by, among other things, failing to adopt an IPS.

There’s been a growing trend toward consolidation among retirement plan service providers. But for the most part, less competition hasn’t translated into higher fees for plan sponsors — at least not yet. If anything, the costs for recordkeeping and administrative functions have tended to trend downward.