Why An Employer Needs An AIF to Consult On Their 401k?

Ask for your complimentary 401k Committee Book

Most 401k committee members are fiduciaries and many employers are unaware of their legal obligations. Unlike commissioned brokers, Terry Morgan has some “skin in the game” as an Investment fiduciary to your plan. Typically, insurance agents and stockbrokers who cannot directly sign on as a fiduciary to the 401k plan, delegate the process to well-known fiduciary service providers such as Morningstar or Lipper. The problem with delegating the process is, that the broker’s big fat commission is still on top of the employees investments which directly reduce everyone’s investment returns including the President or owner who typically have the largest 401k balances.

You may have received recently a complimentary 401k Committee Book on how to run a retirement plan committee. If you refer to Rocco Di Bruno’s Best Practices for Investment Committees page 51; “ERISA encourages the use of independent financial professionals, investment consultants and money managers to help trustees who lack the knowledge or experience in areas such as investment selection and manager retention. The courts have further emphasized that a fiduciary that lacks the requisite training and skills “may retrain a qualified independent expert provided he first determines the expert is independent, qualified and has undertaken a sufficient analysis to have an informed opinion.”

AIF designees must:

• Accrue six hours of continuing professional education with at least four coming from fi360-produced sources (outlined in the section below)
  
• Attest to a code of ethics
  
• Maintain current contact information in fi360's designee database

 

Continuing Education Requirements:

AIF designees must obtain six combined hours of continuing professional education each renewal year from the sources listed below (at least four hours must be accumulated from the listed fi360-produced sources):

• The fi360 annual conference (live event)
  
• Archived recordings from past fi360
  
• conferences (from the on-demand fi360 CE directory)
  
• fi360 Resources webinars (live)
  
• Archived recordings of Resources webinars (from the on-demand fi360 CE directory)
  
• Relevant events produced by sources outside of fi360 (max of two hours per year allowed)
  
• Web-based AIF Training (course audit) and………..Participation.