GLWBs: Fiduciary Considerations for Plan Sponsors

[Brian Anderson]

If anyone is interested in some “light” summer reading on fiduciary standards applicable to offering Guaranteed Lifetime Withdrawal Benefits products to an employee benefits plan menu, here’s a new article for you:

http://www.iricouncil.org/docs/BenefitsLawJournalGLWBFiduciaryConsiderations.pdf

The Insured Retirement Institute’s Cathy Weatherford says of the article:
“This new groundbreaking contribution to the benefits law arena by ERISA legal experts provides a clear roadmap to help plan sponsors meet their obligations under ERISA when deciding to make lifetime income options available to their workers. Employer-provided retirement plans are the next frontier for offering American workers access to lifetime income options so that they can ensure they will have guaranteed income throughout all their retirement years.”

 

[scagnt83]

If anyone is interested in some “light” summer reading on fiduciary standards applicable to offering Guaranteed Lifetime Withdrawal Benefits products to an employee benefits plan menu, here’s a new article for you:

http://www.iricouncil.org/docs/BenefitsLawJournalGLWBFiduciaryConsiderations.pdf

The Insured Retirement Institute’s Cathy Weatherford says of the article:
“This new groundbreaking contribution to the benefits law arena by ERISA legal experts provides a clear roadmap to help plan sponsors meet their obligations under ERISA when deciding to make lifetime income options available to their workers. Employer-provided retirement plans are the next frontier for offering American workers access to lifetime income options so that they can ensure they will have guaranteed income throughout all their retirement years.”

Thanks for the link Brian.

Imo, it is a can of worms. Granted I do have a few IAs with riders inside of 401Ks, they are all solo plans, which lessens the fiduciary worries greatly.

401Ks have already had lifetime income features for a few years now. But they have been SPIA only type features. It is very hard to do you due diligence in explaining the benefits of an IA with a large group. But eventually the prepackaged platforms will have "approved" IA/GLWB offerings in them. But to piecemeal it (like you have to do in today's 401k worlds) is extremely hard for a large plan. (or even a small plan)