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The U.S. Department of Labor has taken significant steps to make sure retirement plan participants are getting the services they need at a fair price.

In 2012, new regulations require retirement plan service providers to report their plan fees and expenses to the plan sponsor, and to describe the services covered by these costs.  Additional regulations require new disclosures to the plan participants regarding the fees and expenses of the plan.

We applaud the DOL initiative to increase the transparency around plan services and fees.  We describe below some steps Swerdlin is taking to help you meet your plan fiduciary obligations.

• In the next few weeks, Swerdlin will be sending you an updated engagement agreement that meets the new disclosure requirements.  It is very important that you return a signed copy back to us before July 1, 2012.

• With the goal of making the new annual participant disclosure as painless as possible, we have partnered with Newkirk to provide the most effective communication materials available. Click here for an example of the new disclosures.

• We are currently redesigning our quarterly participant statement to incorporate the changes that become effective later this year. Your new participant statement will look something like this.

• We are also working on a solution to offer our clients a tool to benchmark their service providers’ fees and the services associated with these fees.