Retirement Plan Consulting
Retirement Plan Consulting
If you’ve established a retirement plan for your employees, there are certain responsibilities about which you may be unaware. Our professionals will work with you to review the plan and key duties to help ensure plan trustees are not held personally liable for complaints filed against the plan. Our proactive process helps plan fiduciaries stay in compliance with section 404(c) of ERISA while also providing a benefit to employees.
West Financial Services provides fee-only analysis and evaluation of company retirement plans, including investment options, participation, cost and design. Further, we act as a co-fiduciary with respect to decisions that impact the ultimate beneficiaries of the plan – the employees.
An overview of our approach
Plan Evaluation
Services start with a full evaluation of the current plan. Based on this evaluation, we may recommend changes that your current provider can implement to improve investment options, lower costs or improve overall service.
Investment Review
As part of the initial review, we evaluate available investment options or select core funds using criteria documented by the trustees or otherwise recommended based on the plan’s goals.
Investment Policy Statement
If a plan does not have an investment policy statement, we will help create one or update an existing investment policy statement as part of the investment review and selection process. We believe that the drafting and implementation of a well-articulated investment policy statement is a key element in selecting and monitoring retirement plan investment options.
Employee Education
Employees appreciate having resources that help them to make good choices about their retirement. To that end, we regularly meet with employees to review changes to the plan and investments. We also discuss retirement planning issues, risk management, and asset allocation. Periodic newsletters provide employees with ongoing economic commentary, individual fund performance reviews and additional financial planning articles.
Plan Monitoring
Plan sponsors or retirement plan investment committees should have a process for documenting all plan-related decisions. As part of our ongoing services, we create an annual trustee report that includes detailed fund reviews, participation and cost analysis, and recommendations for any changes based on the review and in coordination with the investment policy statement. Meetings with the trustees are held to review this report and prepare for the next plan year.