OUR SERVICES
Is a Guaranteed Lifetime Income Option Right for You?
OUR SERVICES
Is a Guaranteed Lifetime Income Option Right for You?
A Road Map for Plan Sponsors and Retirement Committees
Implementing guaranteed lifetime income options in your retirement plan can improve retirement readiness for your plan participants. But for the plan sponsor, these can be choppy waters.
We have laid out this roadmap as a tool for plan sponsors and retirement committees to help navigate the process. It breaks out the settlor functions and the fiduciary functions that are involved and is constructed to ensure that the best interests of plan participants are being met.
PHASE 1
Plan Design Phase
The decision to add guaranteed lifetime income options to your plan is an important plan design issue. During this phase, the plan sponsor will want to:
1. Decide if the addition of guaranteed lifetime income options fits with the goals and objectives of your employee benefit plan.
2. Determine if guaranteed lifetime income options will replace or be in addition to other investment menu options.
3. Review both in-plan and out-of-plan guaranteed lifetime income options.
4. Verify which guaranteed lifetime income products your recordkeeper can accommodate.
5. Identify your participant education and communication strategy for guaranteed lifetime Income products.
6. Amend your plan documents to reflect the inclusion of this option.
PHASE 2
Implementation Phase – Fiduciary Functions
This phase consists of fiduciary decisions. By appointing us as an independent fiduciary for this implementation, we will:
1. Analyze your plan, and apply our fiduciary procedures to the selection of a guaranteed lifetime income product.
2. Identify all appropriate solutions using Harrison Fiduciary’s proprietary research.
3. Select the guaranteed lifetime income option for your plan.
4. Document the process and the rationale for the decision.
PHASE 3
Ongoing Monitoring Phase
Harrison Fiduciary will continue to be the independent fiduciary with respect to your retirement plan’s guaranteed lifetime income option. This involves the ongoing monitoring of the option that we have selected and benchmarking it against the universe of available products.
By doing this, your retirement committee can rest assured that the option in the plan continues to serve the best interest of the plan participants. It also relieves you of the fiduciary liability that comes with its offering.
Harrison Fiduciary will provide your retirement committee with a written annual report and will meet with the committee on an annual basis as documentation that the fiduciary responsibilities have been satisfied.