Guide for Selecting Buyout Annuity Provider Stresses Importance of Adminstration

Penbridge Advisors released a white paper titled “’Check Please!’: The Importance of Administration in the Selection of an Annuity Provider,” which provides a comprehensive framework covering the key administrative considerations that fiduciaries should review when selecting an insurer to provide annuities to participants of a defined benefit (DB) pension plan.

The white paper explains why a review of insurers’ administrative capabilities and practices is such a crucial part of fiduciaries’ responsibilities in light of the Department of Labor’s Interpretive Bulletin 95-1. “Particularly at this point in the Information Age,” says Penbridge Co-Founder and Principal Robert Goldbloom, “it is critical for fiduciaries to recognize and address many issues such as cybersecurity specifically because they are now so important to plan participants.”

“Our intent is that this paper serve as a practical guide to plan fiduciaries,” says Steve Keating, co-founder and principal of Penbridge Advisors. “It should help them to identify the key administration considerations and to ask the right questions on behalf of plan participants.”

Keating added, “Other than financial strength, benefits administration service is the most important factor in the fiduciary selection of an annuity provider.”