Products December 13, 2013

Great-West Launches Education Website

Great-West Life has launched a website to help employers better educate workers on retirement planning and saving.
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The website, smartPATH 2.0, is presented as a virtual neighborhood that can be customized to reflect the details of each participating employer’s specific group retirement and savings plan. Touch points throughout the site educate employees about their plan while encouraging and facilitating enrollment.

The site is accessible from multiple platforms such as desktop computers, tablets and mobile devices.

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“Many employees are still not on track to achieve adequate retirement income because they fail to participate or fully engage in their employer-sponsored retirement program, even when there is a matching employer contribution,” says Jeff Aarssen, vice president of group retirement services sales and marketing for Great-West Life.

Aarssen says behavioral finance theory has found these decisions are strongly influenced by emotion, psychology and mental shortcuts, with unengaged employees wanting employers to present educational information in more interesting and motivating ways.

“SmartPATH 2.0 was designed using behavioral finance and motivational theory,” he adds. “This approach acknowledges the role emotions play in financial decisionmaking. It provides information in a manner that appeals to a broad range of ages and learning styles, so we can help people make better financial decisions.”

A video about smartPATH can be found here.

Great-West Life is a provider of capital accumulation plans in Canada. In the United States, the company does business as Great-West Financial, a group retirement plan recordkeeper.

Compliance December 13, 2013

Fiduciary Named to Indiana 401(k) Plan

A federal district court has issued a judgment that authorizes the appointment of an independent fiduciary for an Indiana 401(k) plan.
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The decision comes out of a Department of Labor (DOL) lawsuit, Perez v. Hellman (docket Number: 1:13-cv-01056), filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana. The defendants named in the suit were Theresa A. Hellman and Robin M. Polin, both individually and as fiduciaries of the Specialty Staff Inc. 401(k) Plan, based in Carmel, Indiana.

The DOL’s suit alleges that as fiduciaries of the plan, the defendants did not ensure that the plan was properly administered. For example, copies of Annual Reports Form 5500 were not filed in a timely manner, administrative expenses on behalf of the plan were not paid, and no actions were taken to ensure the affairs of the plan were properly administered after Specialty Staff Inc. ceased doing business around December 2010.

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In November, the DOL’s Regional Solicitor’s Office filed a motion for a judgment on the pleadings. On December 5, the court granted the motion and ordered the defendants removed as fiduciaries of the plan. The court also barred them from being a fiduciary or service provider to any plan covered by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA).

AMI Benefit Plan Administrators, of Youngstown, Ohio, was then appointed as the plan’s independent fiduciary.

Records maintained by the plan’s asset custodian show that as of September 2012, the plan had 13 participants with assets totaling $44,044.23.

The full text of the judgment from the court can be downloaded here.

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