Pension & Benefits Associates, Inc.

When you sponsor a qualified retirement plan, you sponsor your employees’ dreams for the future—and your own. How can you help move those dreams up the proverbial mountain of work and life? By choosing the right experts to guide your way. Pension & Benefits Associates will not only help you and your team ensure steady footing on the upward climb, but equip you with tools and sound advice for a smooth, enjoyable descent.

The mountain in our scenario represents the two pieces of retirement planning: saving for retirement (up the mountain) and spending in retirement (down the other side). While many consultants are only about the ascent, we recognize and emphasize the importance of the entire journey. We work with you, the sponsor, to map out and lead the excursion. In addition, we offer customized one-on-one support for your employees, the participants themselves. From enrollment through their retirement date—that long-awaited transition atop the mount—we're there to coach and counsel.  

 

What we provide

In the world of financial management, retirement planning is a unique undertaking. Surrounded by complex, ever-changing rules and liability, this fiduciary field is a true specialty—one that each of our professionals has passionately practiced for years.

Pension & Benefits Associates offers services at three “levels”:

 

PLAN-LEVEL INVESTMENT

General

  • Serve as investment co-fiduciary
  • Review plan’s investment objectives
  • Assist in development of Investment Policy Statement
  • Provide investment monitoring and reporting

Investment menu services*

  • Recommend plan menu design
  • Recommend and monitor investment options
  • Review qualified default investment alternative (QDIA)

*Available only if the plan is a defined contribution plan with participant-directed investments

 

PARTICIPANT LEVEL

When participants call us, we don't refer them to a call center; we work with them directly, providing:

Investment education

  • Meet with participants, regularly and/or on request, to present information on the plan, general finance and investments; provide asset allocation models; and provide interactive investment materials
  • Develop participant education and communication strategy
  • Review progress against education strategy goals

Investment advice

  • Determine advisable strategies based on participant’s preferences and circumstances
  • Conduct one-on-one participant meetings at mutually convenient times and locations

 

PLAN OPERATION LEVEL

Plan Committee services

  • Review Plan Committee governance and structure
  • Attend Plan Committee meetings
  • Provide fiduciary education to Plan Committee
  • Develop and maintain fiduciary file

Bonding-related services

  • Review ERISA fidelity bond

Plan administration-related services

  • Review ERISA Section 404(c) compliance
  • Analyze plan design
  • Review 404(a)(5) disclosures for completeness
  • Review ERISA budget account or plan expense reimbursement arrangement (PERA)
  • Provide ongoing support for plan operation

Provider oversight-related services

  • Monitor administrative service provider(s)
  • Review 408(b)(2) disclosures for completeness
  • Conduct periodic benchmarking of fees, services, and investments
  • Generate and evaluate service provider requests for proposals (RFPs) and requests for information (RFIs)
  • Support contract negotiations with administrative service provider(s)
  • Provide service provider transition and/or plan conversion support

 

We use straightforward presentations and practical financial planning tools to help you educate, motivate, and empower your participants on their journey toward, and through, retirement. Demystifying complexities along the way is what we do best.