Product & Service Launches

ShareBuilder waives 401(k) setup fee; Voya launches access to SecureSave; Equitable expands Endowment Solutions Platform; and more.

ShareBuilder 401k Removes Setup Fee

ShareBuilder 401k announced, waiving the $150 setup fee to set a retirement plan to encourage small businesses to offer a retirement plan to employees.

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Three-quarters (76%) of small businesses do not offer 401(k) plans because of high perceived costs, according to a recent ShareBuilder 401k survey. Tackling their cost concerns, now through July 1, new ShareBuilder Solo 401(k) clients can secure a free plan setup.

Solo 401(k)s are great for any self-employed business looking to contribute at least $7,000 per year,” said Stuart Robertson, president and CEO of ShareBuilder 401k.

Voya Financial Launches New Emergency Savings Program

Voya Financial announced a new partnership with SecureSave, offering access to the provider’s workplace emergency savings program to plan sponsors as an option outside of the retirement plan.

The program is available to all Voya’s clients of all sizes. The after-tax offering is funded through enrolled participant’s elective paycheck deferrals.

“For many, a lack of emergency savings is putting their retirement at risk. At Voya, we have also found from our own retirement plan participant data that employees without emergency savings are 13 times more likely to take a hardship withdrawal from their retirement account,” said Tom Armstrong, vice president of customer analytics and insight and head of the Behavioral Finance Institute for Innovation at Voya Financial.

Equitable Expands Corporate Endowment Solutions Platform

Equitable has announced expanding accessibility to financial professionals of the VUL Optimizer product, offering variable universal life insurance policies through the company’s corporate endowment solutions platform to help serve clients.

The CES platform provides financial professionals with a full-service program, ranging from front-end sales and illustration support through ongoing modeling and asset and liability reporting, said Equitable in a press release.

The VUL Optimizer product is designed to maximize policyholders’ future income. It includes access to more than 80 investment options to help investors build assets to supplement retirement income.

Adding the VUL Optimizer to CES and its administration platform, financial professionals can access contract administration support throughout the life of the policy. The CES solution is available for VUL Optimizer policies of $20,000 in premiums or more.

Financial services company Equitable is the principal franchise of Equitable Holdings Inc.

HSA Bank Debuts Benefit to Support Adoption

HSA Bank, a division of Webster Bank N.A., announced offering plan sponsors adoption assistance to provide support to employers to help their employees save on the costs related to the legal adoption of a child.

Using the benefit, employees who want to expand their family through adoption save pre-tax money under a cafeteria plan and are reimbursed for qualified expenses, such as adoption fees, court costs, attorney fees and travel expenses.

“While the process of expanding a family through adoption is an exciting time, the process can be costly,” said Chad Wilkins, president of HSA Bank. “Our new Adoption Assistance plans allow employers to ease some stress related to the adoption process by providing financial support for this major life moment. This new offering is a further evolution of HSA Bank’s mission to drive value and provide tangible outcomes for customers.”

New York Life Investments Renames Funds

New York Life Investments announced it will rename its flagship MainStay mutual funds and IndexIQ exchange-traded funds.

New York Life has added NYLI to the names of the renamed funds, replacing the MainStay and IQ names, to better align with the strength of its brand and ensure these products are more easily recognizable.

“This is an exciting chapter in the evolution of our business, which we believe will create more distinction in the market, and greater brand clarity and consistency for New York Life Investments and our boutiques,” said Kirk Lehneis, chief operating officer and head of U.S. retail at New York Life Investments.

Each of the fund name changes is expected effective either alternatively August 12, 2024, or August 28, 2024, according to the company’s press release.

3M Announces Transfer of 23,000 Retirees to Insurer

The transaction will remove $2.5 billion in pension liabilities from the company's books.

Plan sponsor 3M announced on Thursday that it would offload pension liabilities for 23,000 retirees in its employee retirement income plan to annuity provider Metropolitan Tower Life Insurance Company.

The transaction, worth $2.5 billion of the St. Paul, Minnesota-based manufacturing and consumer company’s liabilities and related plan assets, will cover 60% of the retirees in the company’s defined benefit plan. Met Tower Life will assume responsibility for making liability payments to retirees on October 1. 

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According to the company’s Form 5500 for plan year 2022, the 3M Employee Retirement Income Plan had 61,500 participants, and roughly $14 billion in assets. An annual SEC filing reveals that the company’s U.S. pension plan had a funded status of 94% at the end of 2023. 

In January, the company announced that it would freeze its pension plan. The freeze will take effect in December 2028. In 2009, the company stopped enrolling new employees into the plan. 

The 3M lift-out is only one of several large transactions announced this year, as more and more plan sponsors determine what to do with funding surpluses in their plans. In May, most corporate pensions had more assets than liabilities in their plans, with many firms who track the funded status of corporate plans finding that an overwhelming number have a funded status of over 100%. 

A period of higher interest rates and strong equity returns drove the funded status surplus that many plans are enjoying. Megadeals announced this year include Verizon’s $5.9 billion pension risk transfer with Prudential and RGA Reinsurance and Shell’s $4.9 billion transaction with Prudential. 

According to insurance research organization LIMRA, single-premium PRT sales reached a high of $14.6 billion in the first quarter of 2024, across 146 contracts. 

Metropolitan Tower, based in Lincoln, Nebraska, is a subsidiary of MetLife Inc.

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