Data & Research April 4, 2011

Employees Want Help to Get in Control of Savings

A study by the ING Retirement Research Institute found less than half of respondents (48%) indicated that they feel “in control” of their retirement plan investments.
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The study, “Shedding Light on Retirement,” found that while consumers want control and empowerment of their money, the expectation is that their employers, advisers and financial providers will help guide them.   

Eighty-nine percent of respondents want help allocating their investments, and 86% want guidance calculating their financial needs in retirement, with nearly as many (84%) saying that they want solutions for calculating and creating retirement income, ING reported.

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The study also highlighted that consumers want advice that enables them to develop clear and actionable short- and long-term goals. More than three-quarters of Americans (80%) said they found it important to use specific tools and services that advise on how to calculate financial needs for retirement.   

Other areas where Americans found specific tools and services to be important included providing advice on how to allocate retirement savings (79%) and providing an annual “financial checkup” to set and measure progress (78%).  

“Consumers also value the control to make their own retirement-planning decisions but want detailed instructions on how to accomplish their financial objectives,” said Lynne Ford, CEO of ING Individual Retirement. ING released the report in conjunction with the launch of a new Web site, RetireWithING.com (see “ING Introduces Retirement Planning Web Site“). 

The Boston Consulting Group gathered data from 2,600 Americans for the ING study.
Compliance April 4, 2011

Participants Not Responsible for Employers' Legal Fees

A federal judge in Colorado rejected an employer’s request that its lawyers' fees be paid for by participants who lost their case.
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El Paso Corp. was asking for $1.5 million in litigation fees for a cash balance plan suit that was ultimately decided in the company’s favor. Senior Judge Walker D. Miller of the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado found a good deal of legal uncertainty about cash balance plans when the original suit was filed against El Paso Corp. in 2004. That meant that there was no bad faith or culpability shown by the participants challenging the plan, the court argued. El Paso requested it be awarded attorneys’ fees for the time its attorneys spent on the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) portion of the case and that related age-discrimination allegations were not at issue.

“[E]ven though I ultimately determined that Plaintiffs’ claims should not go forward, I cannot conclude that Plaintiffs’ assertions were so lacking in merit that they should bear the implicit sanction of an attorneys’ fee award for the Defendants,” Miller wrote.

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In addition to ruling for the employer on the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) claims, Miller also eventually tossed out age discrimination allegations (see “Court Dismisses Cash Balance ADEA Charges“).  

The case is Tomlinson v. El Paso Corp., D. Colo., No. 1:04-cv-02686-WDM-CBS.

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