Products February 5, 2007

DWS Scudder Updates Plan Sponsor Site

February 5, 2007 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - DWS Scudder has unveiled a host of multimedia enhancements to its Web site that is designed to support plan sponsors and financial advisers while offering access to plan administration information.
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A DWS Scudder news release said the enhancements include:

  • a Fiduciary Library Series of educational guides on the new Roth 401(k) option and the Investment Policy Statement.
  • a perpetual compliance calendar of significant regulatory dates and IRS/DoL deadlines.
  • multimedia tutorials profiling service offerings and DWS Scudder’s participant education program.
  • a menu of plan sponsor aids covering current legislative trends such as the provisions of the Pension Protection Act of 2006.
  • a series of interactive surveys designed to help plan sponsors and financial advisers benchmark their plan features versus national averages.
  • messages of the month that can be forwarded to participants to help improve communication and potential participation in the plan; and
  • a library of educational articles covering topics such as choosing and monitoring an appropriate fund lineup and understanding how workforce demographics affect plan design.

“The changing legislative and regulatory landscape surrounding the defined contribution industry means financial advisers and plan sponsors must continually make sense of new information while striving to fulfill their fiduciary responsibilities,” said Roger Gray, Head of Relationship Management for DWS Scudder Retirement Services, in the news release. “Our new plan sponsor site is designed to help users prudently serve their plan participants’ evolving needs within this dynamic environment.”

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More information is at  www.dws-scudder.com .

Administration February 4, 2007

Empire State to Audit AIG's Workers' Comp Accounting

April 26, 2005 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - New York state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer and Insurance Superintendent Howard Mills announced that the Empire State's Insurance Department would hire an auditor to examine how American International Group (AIG) has booked workers compensation premiums.
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A  joint news release said that the practice to be audited, now apparently discontinued, involved booking premiums for workers’ compensation coverage as premiums for general liability policies instead. The regulators alleged that by booking the income as something other than workers’ compensation premiums, AIG avoided paying its true share into various workers’ compensations funds.

According to the announcement, an AIG document dating from the early 1990s roughly estimated an unlawful benefit to AIG at tens of millions of dollars annually.

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In 1992, an internal AIG legal memorandum to top management reported that the practice was illegal. This followed similar warnings made years earlier. It remains unclear when the practice stopped, according to regulators.

AIG, has recently been cooperating with the Attorney General and Insurance Department’s inquiries, the announcement said (See  AIG Executives Canned For Failing to Cooperate With Investigators ).

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