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Business at a Glance as of 12/31/21
- Plan assets under advisement: $498 million
- Median plan size (in assets): $2.2 million
- Plans under administration: 80
- Total participants served: 13,000
PLANADVISER: Tell us about your practice and how you got into advising retirement plans.
Kopec: I began working with retirement plans in 2008 with a large national recordkeeper. This was too transactional for me as I wanted to continue working with plan sponsors and participants after the sales process concluded. In 2016, I joined Connor & Gallagher OneSource (CGO) to lead the retirement plan practice. At that time, CGO had about 20 retirement plan clients with approximately $200 million in plan assets under advisement. Today, we advise on over 80 retirement plans and are close to topping $500 million in plan assets under advisement.
PLANADVISER: How is your team/process/structure unique? How has it evolved? Where will you be in five years?
Kopec: I believe CGO is unique because we are committed to offer services to the micro end of the retirement plan space, as well as larger plans. Our practice has evolved by structuring multiple services models correlating to the needs of the plan and the revenue earned by CGO. This way, our practice can operate profitably while offering a quality solution for small businesses. In five years, I see continued growth for our practice. Doubling the number of plans we serve, adding two more retirement plan advisers, and growing our wealth management practice as well. I see our wealth management practice continuing to deliver financial education to participants in our retirement plans.
PLANADVISER: How do you grow your business? What changes to your practice or service model are you planning for 2022 or 2023?
Kopec: Most of our growth has come from introducing retirement advisory services to both existing CGO clients and prospects. CGO provides brokerage and consulting services for commercial and employee benefits insurance. We also provide payroll processing services as well as Human Resources outsourcing. In 2022, we will begin offering personal lines insurance and we are working on developing a health savings account product for our firm.
PLANADVISER: Why do you feel that retirement plan advisers should get involved in the expansion of the DC retirement plan system to cover more types of employers and employees?
Kopec: More benefits continue to be provided through the workplace. This is an easy place to connect more Americans with benefits and resources we need. If more Americans are not covered by a plan through their employer, then more pressure will be applied to the social services provided by our government. The smaller end of the market will not be for every DC consulting practice. But if more DC retirement plan advisors provide a small market solution, we can connect with more working Americans and help them live financially stable lives.
PLANADVISER: What are the biggest challenges preventing the broader delivery of tax-advantaged retirement savings opportunities in the workplace, and how might these be solved?
Kopec: I believe cost and administrative complexity continue to be a large challenge preventing the adoption of more retirement plans offered in the workplace. Tax credits help, but not everyone is aware of them. In my experience, most of the compliance issues come from payroll data. Our firm has consolidated the number of recordkeepers we work with. This helps us be more familiar with the providers processes and we are better able to help the plan sponsors efficiently structure the administration for the plan. This can be accomplished by using a 3(38) provider, a payroll feed with the recordkeeper, outsourcing some administrative tasks, etc.