Retirement Insights
Hand Off Pension Plan Administration to a Top Expert
September 19, 2024
Organizations that have a hands-on approach to pension plan administration may actually have their hands full. Every pension plan is unique, and the complexity can lead to costly administrative mistakes by internal staff.
Today, pension plans require actuarial, administrative and compliance expertise. These are not typically the skill sets and experience of internal staff members for most organizations – and these kinds of highly-qualified employees aren’t easy to find. In addition, regulatory changes, economic shifts and changing business dynamics complicate efforts to remain compliant.
Outsourcing your pension administration offers confidence in knowing your employees are fully supported, and your plan is administered accurately, efficiently and cost-effectively.
Relieve Administrative Burden Through Outsourcing
No matter the plan’s size, maintaining an in-house pension administration platform is often a costly option for carrying out a variety of duties, including:
- Providing accurate and timely benefit calculations
- Efficiently delivering benefit election kits
- Properly managing participant and beneficiary data
- Promptly and accurately processing and fulfilling benefit elections
- Prudently and proactively providing direction to trustees
- Attentively managing cases
- Quickly and knowledgably responding to participant/beneficiary inquiries via phone and email
These are day-to-day responsibilities, and they may compete for the attention of internal resources who are focused on other business issues. A lack of focus on plan administration may result in errors – and those errors can have consequences to your organization, including fiduciary liability and fines from the Department of Labor (DOL), Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC).
Employers can find a cost-effective solution to plan administration challenges through a partner whose expertise extends to offering professional pension outsourcing services. USI Consulting Group’s (USICG) pension administration solutions include a dedicated team of experienced professionals and leading-edge technology to outsource administration and support your employees. Our Fully Outsourced model removes all day-to-day and nearly all administrative duties from the retirement plan sponsor. Below is a list of what our team and technology can do for your business.
USICG utilizes proprietary technology through customized systems designed to handle unique retirement plan provisions and plan sponsor requirements. Complex plans with unique administration requirements are a specialty of USICG retirement plan consultants and we’ll work with you to customize a solution that best fits your organization’s needs. USICG can take the administrative responsibility totally off your plate with our outsourcing solution, or our team can support you on a project basis. We have helped numerous clients navigate time intensive de-risking projects and plan terminations using our online election technology and call center support team.
Leading-Edge Technology and Support
USICG’S Web-Based Administration Tool
USICG offers fully outsourced administration services through a combination of our experienced administrative staff, a full-service call center and our web-based administration portal. Our web portal provides employees with instant access to their benefits, plan documentation, and self-service tools to initiate or model future benefits. USICG’s participant web portal simplifies the election process and allows your plan participants to make their entire election online. We also support secure electronic uploads of supporting documentation and house a secure email box for your employees to communicate and receive custom documents via the site. Employers can also leverage our website to support reporting needs, perform calculations or look up individual participant accounts.
Human Touch: Live Participant Call Center
Should your pension plan participants need or prefer to talk to someone in person they can do so by contacting our call center. Our U.S.-based call center of trained representatives are available from 8:00am to 8:00pm (ET) Monday through Friday to answer questions or initiate requests.
Case Study: Administration hand-off pays off
Transitioning pension plan administration to USICG proved to be advantageous for a food manufacturing company in the Northeast U.S. The organization had two pension plans (one for union employees and another that was frozen). The administrative duties of the plans were overwhelming to the Human Resources (HR) staff and the client hired USICG to administer their plans. The USICG Benefits Service Center provided knowledgeable guidance to participants in completing paperwork and processing their payments.
Contracting pension administration duties with USICG saved the company over $26K of HR time annually performing plan calculations and administering the plan. In addition, the hand off to USICG significantly improved the accuracy of the calculations and overall participant satisfaction.1
USICG is a top 10 provider of defined benefit plan administration and outsourcing.2 While other consulting firms are scaling back pension consulting services, USICG is expanding pension plan services to continue to provide innovative solutions for your organization today and well into the future.
Is It Time to Simplify Your Pension Administration?
In case you missed it, we hosted a webinar discussing the benefits of outsourcing pension plan administration and how it can be a cost-effective solution.
How USI Consulting Group Can Help
USICG delivers the following day-to-day relief through its pension administration services:
- Frees up the human resources staff for strategic tasks in the organization
- Reduces internal costs to administer the pension plan
- Enhances overall customer service to pension plan participants
- Increases participant appreciation of the plan benefits
- Ensures accuracy and consistency of data and communications
- Ensures DOL, IRS, PBGC and all other compliance requirements are met
To learn more about how our pension plan administration services, experienced team, leading-edge technology and service models enable employers to choose the best value solution and support their employees, contact your local USICG representative, visit our Contact Us page or reach out to us directly at information@usicg.com.
1 Actual results will vary and are dependent upon various factors including, but not limited to: number of participants, total plan asset value, management fees, administrative costs and services provided.
2 USI Consulting Group has been recognized as one of the 10 largest defined benefit administration service providers in PLANSPONSOR’s 2024 Defined Benefit Administration Survey, as measured by both participants and numbers of plans fully outsourced.
This information is provided solely for educational purposes and is not to be construed as investment, legal or tax advice. Prior to acting on this information, we recommend that you seek independent advice specific to your situation from a qualified investment/legal/tax professional.
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