WE WORK TO KEEP YOUR PLAN AUDIT-READY
Communication & Enrollment Meetings
We are committed to keeping you both you and your employees informed. This means that we will be providing quarterly newsletters and enrollment meetings for your employees. We will also provide legislative and regulatory alerts for you.
We strive to make our meetings educational and entertaining. We offer presentations customized to your employee demographics, retirement workshops, and more. We can even offer webinars for remote locations or individuals.
Key components of our communication strategy include:
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Pre-enrollment information, posters and announcements
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On-site meetings conducted by licensed professionals
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Onsite group enrollment meetings (if desired)
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Onsite individual enrollment meetings (if desired)
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Onsite financial education meetings
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Financial well-being counseling
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Multilingual meetings and representatives when requested
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Multilingual enrollment materials when requested
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Access to online investment and financial planning
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E-mail and phone contacts for plan participants
Fee Transparency
We provide full fee disclosure and transparency. We hold comprehensive reviews of our advisory fees during the initial meetings as well as on an annual basis. We also offer fee benchmarks for similar plan sizes and a review of all stable value investments and/or fixed accounts.
Vendor Benchmarking & Fee Analysis Process
We begin by benchmarking your current plan to determine how competitive the plan is from a plan administrative, investment, and cost-effective perspective. Subsequently, we may start the vendor search process. While this process can be time-consuming, confusing, and frustrating, we aim to make this step simpler and less stressful. Our review process is designed to help employers eliminate the confusion and frustration of selecting a plan provider, and dramatically reduces the amount of time plan sponsors must allocate to the evaluation of plan providers.
Investment Due Diligence & Monitoring
Once we help you select a plan provider, we establish a due diligence process to help you plan and document fiduciary control activities and responsibilities. Federal regulations make it critical for retirement plan sponsors and fiduciaries to develop and maintain investment due diligence procedures with supporting documentation. We work with your retirement plan committee to develop and maintain the plan’s investment strategy.
- Establish and educate committee
- Committee charter guidance
- Training on fiduciary duties
- Resource to HR for administration and compliance
- Agenda, minutes and documentation
- Plan design consultation
- Service provider selection process & consultation
- Compliance monitoring
- Fee disclosure and benchmarking
- Service provider trouble shooting and interface
- Legislative and regulatory updates and consultation
- Qualified Default Investment Allocation (QDIA) monitoring
- Request for information and Request for Proposal
- Ability to serve as ERISA 3(21) and 3(38) Fiduciary
- Investment Policy Statement (IPS) development
- Consultation on investment structure
- Consultation on investment allocation and options
- Target Date Portfolios – analysis, selection and review
- Initial Manager screening, analysis and selection
- New investment manager search
- Ongoing reporting and monitoring
- Internal investment committee/fi360 screens
- Ongoing watch list process
- Regular investment committee meetings
Plan Compliance Reviews & Project Work
We think it is critical as part of the new client onboarding process to conduct a plan compliance review and in depth document review. Both the IRS and the Department of Labor have stressed the importance of establishing strong internal controls so we believe this step is extremely important when we are first engaged by an organization. Clients have also relied on us for a variety of projects, including
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Investment Consulting/Oversight
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Establish and educate committee
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Committee charter guidance
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Training on fiduciary duties
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Resource to HR for administration and compliance
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Agenda, minutes and documentation
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Plan design consultation
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Service provider selection process and consultation
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Compliance monitoring
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Fee disclosure and benchmarking
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Service provider trouble shooting and interface
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Legislative and regulatory updates and consultation
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Qualified Default Investment Allocation (QDIA) monitoring
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Request for information (RFI) and Request for Proposal (RFP) process management
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Detailed plan administrative reviews
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Comprehensive plan and fee benchmarking
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Merger and acquisition analysis and assistance
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Plan design optimization and analysis
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IRS and DOL audit projects
Fiduciary Services for Retirement Plans
Park Lake Advisors assists plan sponsor fiduciaries with fiduciary risk management strategies. Our Investment Fiduciary status enables us to help plan sponsors pursue high levels of fiduciary standards. Our strategies help plan sponsors reduce fiduciary liability through the effective use of investment committee training, plan governance, provider monitoring, and document retention.
As an investment fiduciary for retirement plans that we serve, we have the same incentives as you—to help you keep your plan in compliance with ever-evolving regulations, and to monitor your plan’s investment options utilizing a prudent process.
In addition to being able to act as a 3(21) Investment Fiduciary, we also provide a number of services, including:
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Assisting in Preparation and Review of an Investment Policy Statement
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Investment Recommendations
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Investment Performance Monitoring
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Recommendation of a Qualified Default Investment Alternative