In Practice September 9, 2008

PLANSPONSOR Opens Nominations for 2009 Retirement Plan Adviser of the Year

The best retirement plan advisers will be recognized through the fourth annual Retirement Plan Adviser and Adviser Team of the Year award.
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Launched in 2005, the awards acknowledge the contributions of the nation’s best financial advisers in helping make retirement security a reality for American workers.

“Advisers are indispensable members of the team for most workplace retirement plans,’ said Nevin Adams, Editor-in-Chief of PLANSPONSOR. “The criteria that underlie the award are simple but critical to the success of our nation’s retirement security; we want to recognize advisers who make a difference through encouraging increased participation, higher deferral rates, contributing to better asset allocation, and delivering expanded service and/or better expense management.’

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The 2009 Retirement Plan Adviser and Adviser Team of the Year awards will be announced at the annual PLANSPONSOR/PLANADVISER Awards Dinner on April 2, 2009, in New York City. Winners and finalists for the awards will be profiled in more detail in future issues of PLANSPONSOR magazine and PLANADVISER magazine, and will receive a free registration to the 2009 PLANADVISER National Conference.

Nominations for the Retirement Plan Adviser and Adviser Team of the Year awards are being solicited online from retirement plan advisers, their employers and/or broker/dealers, and plan sponsors, as well as from working partners of these advisers, including investment vendors, accountants and attorneys, and pension administrators.

The deadline for nominations for this year’s award is October 7, 2008. The nomination form is available here.

The finalists will be selected by an expert panel of judges from a list of semifinalists compiled from a quantitative evaluation of their service levels and based on interviews with their plan sponsor clients.

Previous winners of the award include John Barry, at JMB Wealth Management/National Planning Corporation, Torrance, California (2008) (see 2008 Retirement Plan Adviser of the Year); Chad Larsen with Moreton Financial Solutions in Denver (2007) (see 2007 Retirement Plan Adviser of the Year); Dorann Cafaro of The Cafaro Group in Little Silver, New Jersey (2006); and John Mott of Smith Barney in Houston (2005). Previous PLANSPONSOR Retirement Plan Adviser Team of the Year winners were FFoA in Pearl River, New York (2008) (see 2008 Retirement Plan Adviser Team of the Year), and the STAR Group with Merrill Lynch in Akron, Ohio (2007) (see 2007 Retirement Plan Adviser Team of the Year).

 

Products September 9, 2008

FINRA Launches Podcast Series

The Financial Regulatory Authority (FINRA) wants to provide an earful of advice to help investors avoid potential pitfalls.
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FINRA today launched a series of Investor Podcasts that the agency said “provide clear, unbiased information on a variety of financial issues in an easily accessible format.’

You can download or subscribe to the podcasts from FINRA’s Web site (www.finra.org) or on iTunes. New podcasts will be added every month.

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“Since FINRA doesn’t sell a thing and our job is to protect investors, FINRA’s Investor Podcasts deliver nothing but the facts the public needs to know in order to make informed investment decisions,’ said John Gannon, FINRA’s senior vice president for Investor Education, in a press release. “FINRA is committed to investor education because we believe that education is the most potent form of investor protection.’

The first three installments of the podcast series are now online:

  • “Protect Your Online Brokerage Account” outlines specific steps investors can take to prevent the theft of their personal financial information when investing online.
  • “Reverse Mortgages: Avoiding a Reversal of Fortune” helps homeowners carefully weigh all of their options before tapping into their home equity.
  • “Putting too Much Stock in your Company—a 401(k) Problem” spells out the difficulties employees may face if they put too much of their retirement savings in their company’s stock.

FINRA said upcoming podcasts will outline the steps investors can take to protect themselves from so-called “Free Lunch’ investment seminars, help investors better understand how to use FINRA’s Dispute Resolution program, and demonstrate how the costs associated with different classes of mutual fund shares can impact the value of those investments.


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