If the SECURE 2.0 Act—which builds on the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement Act of 2019—works as expected, new 401(k) and 403(b) retirement plans will proliferate in the years ahead. The legislation provides tax credits for small businesses that start a retirement plan for their employees; in 2025, it will mandate that those plans utilize automatic enrollment and automatic escalation for qualified employees. These are just some of the provisions whereby Congress is targeting its overarching goal of addressing the nation’s retirement savings gap.
Join PLANSPONSOR, PLANADVISER and a panel of industry experts as we discuss:
• SECURE 2.0 provisions related to the creation of new retirement plans;
• Why existing plan sponsors should care about the rules for newly created plans; and
• How SECURE 2.0 can assist advisers and employers in closing the retirement plan coverage gap.

SECURE 2.0—which expands on the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement Act of 2019—has gotten attention for its retirement plan incentives and mandates. But the legislation was also designed to attack some of the biggest financial stresses for everyday Americans, such as by allowing for matching contributions toward student loan debt and encouraging emergency saving. These are just two new benefits in the law that employers may use to help boost employees’ overall financial wellness and facilitate saving for retirement.
Join PLANSPONSOR, PLANADVISER and a panel of industry experts as they review:
• SECURE 2.0 provisions related to employee financial wellness;
• Ways plan sponsors can implement new benefits, and how advisers can help them; and
• How to determine the best benefits for a plan sponsor’s unique employee group.

At the close of last year, Congress passed and President Joe Biden signed the SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022, which builds upon the most significant retirement plan legislation in more than a decade, the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement Act of 2019, or SECURE Act. The new law contains 90 provisions aimed at modernizing the retirement system, encouraging creation of new retirement plans and easing administrative requirements, not to mention prompting plan participants to increase what they save. Most retirement plans will be affected in some way, including those for lower-income workers and small business staff.
Join PLANSPONSOR, PLANADVISER and industry experts as we discuss:
• The impact many provisions will have on plan sponsors and participants;
• A timeline for the issuance of new rules and regulation effective dates; and
• What actions plan sponsors must take now to comply with the law.

Advisory firm mergers and acquisitions have been happening at a fast clip. Many retirement plan advisory firms have decided that wealth management has a place in their business, and vice versa. Additionally, more practices are moving beyond just advising on investments and plan design and are working directly with individual participants and consulting on benefits such as health or emergency savings plans.
Join PLANADVISER for a discussion about the state of the retirement plan advisory industry, how adviser roles are evolving and what aggregator firms can (and cannot) offer advisers.

Assembling the right team and ensuring each member has a path to grow is essential to boosting an advisory firm’s success. Recently, firms have sought to improve staff diversity, and some research shows a more diverse team contributes to stronger business results.
Join PLANADVISER’s third iteration of its 2023 Practice Progress webinar series to learn the value of mentorship programs and how to establish one, optimal practices for developing diverse teams and how to define success for an advisory team and its members.

During a gathering of advisers and providers last year, speakers discussed how defined contribution investment only is out and co-distribution is in. Adapting to a changing marketplace, through more personalization and partnerships, is critical for advisers.
Join PLANADVISER for a discussion about the future of DCIO firms and strategies, the important role partnerships can play and how some firms are assigning more specialists to a relationship, serving clients at all levels.

What do participants want from retirement plan advisers? How can advisers best meet their needs? As retirement plan advisers work more closely with participants and perhaps add wealth management to their practices, what do they need to keep in mind to fulfill their fiduciary duties?
These questions and more will be answered in the final webinar in PLANADVISER’s Practice Progress series for 2023.

Retirement plan advisory groups are naming wealth management leaders to key roles, and aggregator firms are merging with wealth advisers as well as benefits advisers. Sources say firms see their wealth management groups as drivers of growth, but what else is spurring this trend?
Join PLANADVISER and a group of industry experts to learn:
• Why wealth and retirement belong together—or do they?
• How wealth management can be fit into an advisory firm’s service offering,
• How to approach revenue opportunities in wealth management, and more.
An attorney will help provide context about fiduciary issues in this space. You won’t want to miss the robust discussion in the final iteration of PLANADVISER’s Practice Progress webinar series for 2022!

Sponsored by MetLife

An educational webinar about health savings accounts

One outcome of the COVID-19 pandemic is the greater attention paid to benefit offerings. Employees are evaluating their benefits more, according to surveys, and employers are refining their benefits lineup to meet employees’ needs in a more competitive labor market. There’s an opportunity to meet employees’ health care coverage, financial wellness and retirement readiness needs with health savings accounts. Now is the time to consider the advantages of HSAs and the role they can play in meeting plan sponsor and participant goals.
However, plan sponsors and participants have many questions about HSAs—on how they work, what they cover and the tax treatment of distributions. Sponsors also want to know how to communicate about the benefit and increase employee use. During this webinar, attendees will:
• Increase your understanding of health savings accounts through a comparison with the features of something you’re more familiar with—401(k) or 403(b) plans;
• Learn how to position HSAs on your menu of benefits; and
• Hear tips for increasing engagement with HSAs by different employee population types.
Whether you already offer this valuable benefit or are considering doing so, or if you are an adviser wanting to help clients make benefits decisions, this webinar has something for you!

Research from firms like BrightScope and Cerulli Associates shows key defined contribution plan decisionmakers, including advisers and consultants, continue to favor collective investment trusts, largely due to their relatively low-cost structure and pricing flexibility. Today, 401(k) plan assets in CITs have eclipsed the $2 trillion mark, and the growth is expected to accelerate as more investors catch on and the DC plan product set develops.
CITs already dominate the large plan market, particularly within target-date funds, data show, but many CIT providers have recently lowered their investment minimums and, in certain cases, waived them altogether. Cerulli’s reporting finds that those with low or no investment minimums are more tenable investment options for smaller plans—and that advisers can help promote stronger adoption down market, where higher investment fees remain a pressing issue.
Investment vehicles such as exchange-traded funds and separately managed accounts are also a point of focus, with advisers and their clients seeking new ways to put their hard-earned assets to work. This edition of the 2022 PLANADVISER Practice Progress webinar series will take the pulse of the rapidly evolving marketplace of DC plan investments, featuring timely analysis from leading experts who have long known and embraced these “emerging” investment options. If you are a DC plan adviser who wants to know more about how to invest efficiently via CITs, ETFs and other investment types, you can’t afford to miss the discussion!

Sponsored by Betterment
According to a recent Deloitte report, “The Rewards and Risks of Managed Account Programs in the Wealth Management Industry,” assets in managed account programs have grown by 117% since 2012, and they now make up a substantial portion of assets under management and a majority of new asset flows for the wealth management industry. Related analyses show the role of managed accounts has grown substantially within the defined contribution retirement plan space.
Experts say this growth reflects a long-term industry trend away from commission-based brokerage offerings toward fee-based advisory offerings. While there are hurdles to greater adoption, many believe managed account programs are poised for continued growth, especially as more firms have announced plans to make them a strategic priority.
This edition of the 2022 PLANADVISER Practice Progress webinar series will delve into the most important questions about managed accounts, such as:
• How are they built?
• How are they marketed and delivered?
• How can they impact firm operations and client outcomes?
Don’t miss this important discussion designed to help you achieve practice progress!

Sponsored by Betterment

This has been a tough year for U.S. retirement plan participants—and for workers in general. Heading into the year, core inflation was already running above 5%, and it has only spiked since. At the same time, geopolitical events have injected fresh uncertainty into what was already a frothy market, and most retirement investors have experienced substantial reductions in portfolio values. Investment managers say the markets will continue to grapple with the trade-offs between inflation and growth for the foreseeable future.

Sponsored by Wells Fargo Advisors

Adviser industry leaders engaged in merger and acquisition activity often say a target firm’s culture matters every bit as much as its financials. The topic of firm culture is likewise central to discussions about some of the adviser industry’s most pressing challenges and biggest opportunities. But what, exactly, is firm culture, and what does it take to build a positive and productive environment for staff and leadership alike?

Please join American Century Investments’ Rich Weiss, Nancy Pilotte, and Glenn Dial as they discuss how disciplined target date fund management can help ease the impact of volatility on DC investors’ portfolios.

We’ll share current insights on:
• The economic outlook and inflection points
• The impact of volatility on retirement readiness
• Target date strategies for uncertain markets
• The importance of suitability in target-date selection and monitoring

85% of DC plan participants wish their employer’s retirement plan had an option to help generate income in retirement. Meanwhile, 8 in 10 sponsors agree that participants need in-plan income options – yet less than a quarter are very familiar with the SECURE Act safe harbor (1).

Please join us as Glenn Dial, Senior Retirement Strategist at American Century Investments, shares these and other recent insights on sponsor and participant demand for in-plan retirement income solutions.

Highlights include:

• Product features that get high – and low – marks
• Why “annuity” is a dirty word – and what types of products hold the most appeal
• Fiduciary and implementation considerations for sponsors

(1) Greenwald Research 2021 In-Plan Insights Program.