Citing an
increasing need for retirement plan investors to understand the holdings in
their portfolios, investor education company FinMason has launched The
Finspector, a free online tool to help retirement plan participants better
understand their investments. The tool analyzes more than 6 million investments
globally, including 24,000 mutual funds and exchange-traded funds.
The
Finspector points out potential strengths and weaknesses in investors’
portfolios, how their investments could perform in the future under different
market scenarios, how the portfolios’ yields could improve when various
holdings are changed, and how their holdings benchmark against similar funds.
Based on participants’ savings rates and projected performance, the tool also
shows participants how much they can expect to have saved by retirement age.
“Millions of
Americans are basically ignoring their 401(k) plans,” says Kendrick Wakeman,
founder of FinMason. “What investors really need is an independent, unbiased
tool that helps them see which advice is right for them and which advice is
not, so they can move forward with confidence.”
More
information about the tool is available here.
DOL Collected Almost $600 Million in 2014 Enforcement Actions
The Department of Labor’s Employee Benefits Security Administration says it restored over $599.7 million to employee benefit plans and participants last year.
The Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) recovered
nearly $600 million for direct payment to employee plans, participants and
beneficiaries.
Part of the Department of Labor, EBSA’s oversight authority
extends to nearly 684,000 retirement plans, approximately 2.4 million health
plans, and a similar number of other welfare benefit plans, such as those
providing life or disability insurance. These plans cover about 141 million
workers and their dependents and include assets of over $7.6 trillion as of
October 29, 2014.
The EBSA shares a breakdown of the 2014 collection actions on
its website:
Total recoveries – $599.7 million;
Plan assets restored/participant benefits recovered
– $204.9 million;
Voluntary fiduciary correction program – $20.2
million;
Abandoned plan program – $18.4 million; and
Monetary benefit recoveries from informal complaint
resolution – $356.2 million.
EBSA says other civil investigation statistics demonstrate its
success in targeting ERISA violators. In fiscal year 2014, EBSA closed 3,928
civil investigations, with 2,541 of those cases (64.7%) resulting in monetary compensation
for plans or other corrective action. This represents about a 9% decrease in
the rate of infractions found in 2013. Despite a small uptick in the total number
of investigations in 2014, the total of nearly $600 million collected was much
smaller than the $1.7 billion in plan reimbursements and fines paid in 2013 to
settle EBSA criminal cases and civil violations. (The 2013
numbers are reported here.)
As
noted by EBSA, plan fiduciaries have the opportunity to proactively correct violations and restore
losses to employee benefit plans. However, in cases where voluntary compliance
fails or is deemed inappropriate, EBSA works with the Solicitor of Labor to
initiate litigation. In FY 2014, 161 cases were referred for litigation. Nationwide
in 2014, the department filed suit in 107 civil cases.
EBSA notes that it has the responsibility to investigate
potential violations of the criminal provisions of ERISA and those provisions
of Title 18 of the United States Code that relate to employee benefit plans.
EBSA conducts most of its criminal investigations with other federal law
enforcement agencies under the direction of the United States Attorney for that
jurisdiction.
Beyond civil penalties, EBSA investigations led to the indictment
of 106 people for crimes related to employee benefit plans in 2014—including
plan officials, corporate officers, and service providers. The indictments led
to 85 criminal investigations closed with guilty pleas or convictions.
During 2014, EBSA received 457 applications from qualified termination
administrators and closed 538 applications, with 456 plans making distributions
of $18.4 million directly to participants.
Other points of
success, EBSA says, were the Voluntary Fiduciary Correction Program (VCFP) and the
Delinquent Filer Voluntary Compliance Program (DFVCP).The VFCP allows
plan officials who have identified certain violations of ERISA to take
corrective action to remedy the breaches and voluntarily report the violations
to EBSA, without becoming the subject of an enforcement action. In FY 2014,
EBSA received 1,643 applications for the VFCP. The DFVCP encourages plan
administrators to bring their plans into compliance with ERISA's filing
requirements. More than 24,000 annual reports were received through this
program in FY 2014.
In 2014, EBSA's benefits advisers closed more than 213,000
inquiries and recovered $356.2 million in benefits on behalf of workers and
their families through informal resolution of individual complaints. Many of
the inquiries were received via EBSA's hotline (1-866-444-3272) and website (askebsa.dol.gov).
The
full 2014 EBSA enforcement fact sheet is available online here.