Category: Retirement Plans

By Jessica Kmetty

Does retirement sound like a stress-free period of life where you aren’t exhausting yourself for a paycheck and can make your own schedule? For the 80 percent of Americans who believe they won’t have enough saved for retirement, “stress-free” may be the last term they would use to describe it. If many of us are already concerned about having enough money saved to retire, why would we hinder our savings ability by taking a loan from the very account where our nest egg should be growing? One answer: because we can.

A loan provision on an employee-sponsored retirement plan allows participants to take out a loan from their account for any reason they deem necessary. We’re not talking about a “hardship provision” which lets employees distribute money for a specific hardship; rather, a loan provision is an unregulated way for an employee to borrow whenever, for whatever they want. Christmas gifts? A vacation? Are these really reasons to put your financial future in jeopardy? Consider these pitfall examples:

The 401(k) plan is becoming the single largest source of retirement savings for a majority of American workers. According to the Society of Professional Administrators and Recordkeepers (SPARK), over 55 million people participate in 401(k) plans. If you participate in a 401(k) plan, the good news is that you have more control over your retirement money. The bad news is that you have more control over your retirement money.

By Michael J. Searcy and Jessica A. Kmetty

For the past few decades, women have increasingly turned their creativity, ingenuity and business acumen into entrepreneurship, with the number of women-owned businesses near 10 million and growing. While women strive to run successful businesses and overcome the challenges of ownership today, it becomes easy to neglect setting up a retirement savings plan which could help secure a successful future. Without a retirement plan, these women and their employees could work for years, striving to build a successful company, only to fail financially in retirement.

By Jessica Kmetty

Did you know that the Internal Revenue Service requires most employers to restate their retirement plan documents every 6 years? This helps ensure that retirement plans are operating under the most recent laws governing plans and all regulations are being met. Even though Searcy Financial manages retirement plans for other businesses, we also have to restate our own company plan. Our plan came up for restatement this year so we are sharing some best practice guidelines we follow or suggest during a restatement period.

By Jessica Kmetty

More than 50% of retirement Plan Sponsors do not think of themselves as a fiduciary*

Are you an advisor working in a non-Fiduciary capacity?

Do you have the tools necessary to help your Plan Sponsors thrive?

By: Jessica Kmetty

As employees become more educated about issues associated with retirement plans in America, they look to their employer for the answers and guidance. Business owners are being challenged more than ever to provide efficient, cost-effective retirement plans and the guidance to help their employees reach a dignified retirement. With the time associated with running a plan, employers who don’t have help may find these challenges hard to meet. And, even if they delegate the management of their retirement program to an employee or designate a financial advisor to help with the management, they are still the figurehead from whom employees will demand answers. To face these challenges, they must act as leaders, gain their employees’ trust, and help them utilize their retirement plan to reach their goals.