Greetings loyal PLANADVISER readers! Coming on the third Friday of the month, this weekend’s mailing is dedicated to the timely and evolving topic of financial wellness. While the topic has been an important focal point for several years now in the retirement plan advisory space, the coronavirus pandemic has cast an entirely new light on the concept of financial wellness. Simply put, the virus has exposed financial fractures and weak points impacting individuals across the income spectrum, putting the onus on advisers to help people create a sense of stability and confidence about their short-term finances.
Investing experts say smartly pairing the two types of annuities with other investments in a retirement portfolio can deliver significantly more income compared with a traditional withdrawal strategy.
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One notable feature is that account holders can deduct from their own income the amount of HSA contributions made to their account by other people—but not the employer.
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Each U.S. household in the bottom half of the wealth distribution has only $20,000 of net worth, on average, a figure that represents less than 0.1% of those at the very top. Helping more people to own homes and to invest even modestly in the stock market are seen as critical steps to closing that gap.
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Retirement industry practitioners support the provision of mandatory lifetime income disclosures to plan participants, but they also emphasize the importance of broader income conversations and education.
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Advisers can play an important role in helping plan sponsors understand the options available to them, as well as the impact of making certain plan changes.
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Surveys and anecdotal evidence suggest plan sponsors are shortening their plan’s vesting periods, but there remains disagreement in the industry about whether vesting schedules may in fact disappear.
One fiduciary insurance expert who has long been tracking ERISA litigation says a spate of new complaints filed in recent weeks are the ‘most outrageous’ the industry has ever seen.
The short answer is that more financial services firms are looking at their wealth management divisions as drivers of growth; the long answer is a lot more complicated.
Nineteen Republican state attorneys general signed a letter to BlackRock seeking ‘clarification on actions that appear to have been motivated by interests other than maximizing financial return.’
