DALBAR, along with Reason released a ranking of the larger retirement plan providers as it pertains to fee disclosure. The study reviewed the plan sponsor disclosures released by these providers based on transparency analysis.
Does this study mean anything? Well that depends. While cynics will suggest that plan sponsors don’t read them, I believe the rate of the plan sponsor’s comprehension of these disclosures will grow over time.
I didn’t fit in at a law firm and a third party administrator run by an attorney who acted like he was still at a major law firm (despite having run through 3 of them in his first 3 years of practice) and it good chunk of those issues dealt with the way I write. What looks great on a blog and in articles doesn’t work well with memos to law firm partners.
Plan providers such as third party administrators and financial advisors need to look at their disclosures and wee whether the common plan sponsor can understand them. While many plan providers feeling that throwing jargon in them will help keep plan sponsors quiet and/or confused, confused clients are quite unhappier than plan sponsors who understand the fees and services provided by their providers clearly.