Client Service October 10, 2019

Social Security Benefits to Rise 1.6% in 2020

Social Security is a big part of retirement income planning for employees.

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The Social Security Administration has announced that Social Security and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits for nearly 69 million Americans will get a cost of living adjustment (COLA) of 1.6% in 2020.

The COLA will begin with benefits payable to more than 63 million Social Security beneficiaries in January 2020. The COLA adjustment for the eight million SSI beneficiaries will begin on December 31, 2019.

Social Security is a big part of retirement income planning for employees, as it is estimated that Social Security will represent 40% of the average Americans replacement income. Cost of living increases, claiming age, marital status and work history all complicate Social Security claiming strategies.

The administration says the Social Security Act ties the annual COLA to the increase in the Consumer Price Index, as determined by the Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics. Based on that increase, the maximum amount of earnings subject to the Social Security tax will increase from $132,900 to $137,700.

People will be able to view their COLA notice online through their my Social Security account; they can create or access this at: www.socialsecurity.gov/myaccount.

Information about Medicare changes for 2020, when announced, will be available at: www.medicare.gov.

Products October 9, 2019

Pentegra, ADP to Launch Personalized Videos for Sponsors

The interactive sales tool also assigns a grade for retirement plans and is designed to improve advisers’ conversations with plan sponsor clients.

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Pentegra and ADP Retirement Services plan to launch Retirement GuidePath later this fall. It is a platform designed for advisers to better engage with plan sponsors that assigns a grade to each retirement plan. It also generates personalized videos that walk sponsors through how they can better work with their adviser to improve their plan.

“It takes the plan sponsor through a series of questions to ask them how they are handling their plan, and then shares different pieces of research,” says Bruce Harrington, a consultant with Eyes Up Consulting, which is working with Pentegra to help it manage its partnership with ADP and to  help the two companies launch the product. “For example, the platform may tell the sponsor the percentage of plans that have a target-date fund [TDF] or the percentage of participants who believe that retirement income options are important to have in a plan.”

It is designed to make it easier for advisers to have discussions with plan sponsors as they go through the questions, Harrington says. At the end of the session, it generates a score for the retirement plan as well as a personalized video that walks the sponsor through how they could better work with the adviser, he says.

“We are excited to support Pentegra’s development of an interactive personalized video platform to digitally transform their customer communications,” says Larry Lubin, president of BlueRush, which developed the technology for the personalized videos. “Our IndiVideo platform will enable advisers who work with Pentegra to gather information conversationally and visually with plan sponsors and then generate personalized videos to drive improved engagement.”

Harrington says he believes that personalized videos will become the next big thing in the financial services industry.

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