Save the 401(k)! What’s Really At Stake For Plan Participants

The other day we blogged about the House Education and Labor Committee passing H.R. 3185. This is a bill that would require full disclosure of 401(k) fees by plan providers to plan participants.

A recent article in Morningstar examines many of the factors surrounding the legislation and the problems with the current 401(k) plan landscape. Among the topics the article covers:

• The disconnect in the current retirement system where ERISA requires plan sponsors (employers) to fulfill their fiduciary duties by disclosing all fees to plan participants while the plan providers (mainly insurance and mutual fund companies) don’t (won’t?) take fiduciary responsibility for the plans they provide and don’t (won’t) disclose the plans’ expenses.

• A solution proposed by Independent Fiduciary, Matthew Hutcheson, that bridges this disconnect in the current system.

• How the huge profits of the insurance and mutual fund industries rely, in part, to making it as difficult and confusing as possible to figure out exactly what they are charging in fees to 401(k) plan participants.

• What’s at stake: Whether billions of dollars of retirement savings end up in the hands of American workers or those in the financial services industry.

If you are a plan participant or plan sponsor this information is simply too important to ignore. You can read the entire article here.

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