The retirement plan landscape is rapidly changing and increasingly complex. Between volatile markets, the boom of remote work options, shifting worker demographics, and evolving challenges around hiring and retention—finding the right plan to balance performance with a reduced cost structure and mitigation of fiduciary risk and record keeping responsibilities can be a lot for an employer to manage. If they are working with a large national benefits firm, it could be years before they get up to speed on the latest consulting techniques, which employees want. Employees are always asking for their employer to lower costs, so Sapers & Wallack Retirement Consulting practice has evolved a new service offering which could do exactly that.
One of the latest trends in retirement plans aims to give plan sponsors the ability to simplify administration, which helps to save time for both employers and employees. Along these lines, the SECURE Act 2.0 has given all plan sponsors access to Multiple Employer Plans (MEPs), where participant employers can band together to gain the same buying power traditionally only afforded to larger institutions, while outsourcing fiduciary responsibility and plan administration to cut costs and time spent away from running the business.
Typically, such plans have been met with some skepticism as the pooled nature of plan investments limits the control that individual businesses have over plan design and investment choice. Another pervasive myth around MEPs is that in a pooled system, the mistakes of one participant business can adversely affect the fiduciary standing of others. This is not the case, with each participant client receiving and reviewing their own compliance documents independent of other companies in the program—but room for clarification and improvement have left space for a new, forward-thinking vanguard of such plans.
To answer some of the concerns and lead the way in the marketplace, Sapers & Wallack has teamed with Retirement Plan Advisory Group and Empower to offer the Personalized Retirement Employer Plan (PREP), which affords participant businesses the benefits of well-established, pooled buying power and outsourced record keeping to cut costs and limit fiduciary exposure—with customizable plan design features, a proven investment lineup, participant educational tools and resources to drive employee engagement, and a concierge team of experts to help manage your businesses specific needs.
Though the general MEP structure dictates that individual business participants cannot select their own investments, the closely monitored PREP has been shown to consistently invest in best-in-class performers for each investment category. Clients have also been shown to save as much as 50% on total annual costs in record keeping between document preparation, compliance testing, Form 5500 filing, and quarterly participant statements. And for companies that are subject to an annual audit, Sapers & Wallack has negotiated a significant cost savings by offering a comprehensive, individual audit with limited company involvement or time commitment—allowing for more time and emphasis directed on running the business and driving employee engagement.
With fiduciary governance meetings held periodically, and Sapers & Wallack’s retirement team closely managing fiduciary responsibilities and purchasing power efficiencies, the PREP program has been proven to save employers time and lower employee costs. To learn more about the Personalized Retirement Employer Plan and see if this powerful retirement savings tool is right for your company, contact:
Vice President
Retirement & Wealth Management