In life, surprise expenses are bound to happen. If you had an unexpected expense of $400, would you be able to pay for it? If your answer is, “No,” you’re not alone. In a recent survey, thirty-seven percent of Americans said they would have difficulty with an emergency expense of$400.¹ Furthermore, over 145 million Americans have little or no savings at all.² Having an emergency fund can keep an emergency from becoming a financial catastrophe and can help you avoid having to take early withdrawals or loans from your retirement plan account to cover it. With an emergency fund in your back pocke ..read more

Time is your friend when it comes to saving for retirement. This is because of something called compound growth. When our investments earn a return, those returns are reinvested so they may continue to grow. Your savings are exponentially influenced by the amount of time they are invested. In other words, the longer you save, the better. Just look at the examples below. Of course, being the “Consistent saver & investor” is the best-case scenario. However, these examples demonstrate how crucial it is to grant time for your savings to grow. As has often been said about investing, it’s not ..read more

Getting an annual checkup from your doctor can be a great way to stay in good health, but when was the last time you gave your retirement plan account a checkup? Regular checkups can help ensure your financial health, too. Here are a few important items you can check to make sure your retirement account is set up for a healthy, happy future. 1) Review your account Log in to your retirement plan account through your plan recordkeeper’s website. Your account website can give you up-to-date plan information, including your balance, personalized rate of return, and current saving and investing ele ..read more

One of the most important things you can do to manage your retirement plan account is to designate your beneficiaries, but quite often, people miss this crucial step when enrolling in their plan. In fact, 48% of people don’t have a named beneficiary.* A beneficiary is someone your savings will go to should you pass away. Designating a beneficiary ensures your savings go to the people you want. It also helps protect your heirs from the potential stress of dealing with probate proceedings through the courts. Choosing your beneficiaries There are two kinds of beneficiaries –primary and secondary ..read more

On December 29, 2022, SECURE Act 2.0 was signed into law as part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act. The new law includes additional retirement-focused provisions that build off of the original SECURE Act which was passed in late 2019. SECURE Act 2.0 further expands and improves opportunities for Americans to become more retirement ready. The new law contains numerous provisions, but our Retirement Plan Solutions team at BerganKDV has broken down a few key changes that employees and employers should be aware of. Here are a few highlights of the new law that may impact your retire ..read more

What does your retirement saving plan look like for the new year? Thanks to the IRS’s news on cost-of-living adjustments, it could mean increased funding for your future. The IRS recently shared its 2023 cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs) for employer-sponsored retirement accounts and the new changes allow for increased opportunities for tax benefits and overall savings for your retirement. Here’s how the 2023 COLAs may impact your retirement savings: The maximum retirement plan contribution limit for 2023 is $22,500 For contributions to 401(k) or 403(b) retirement plans, you can now contribut ..read more

There are many responsibilities for a plan administrator and/or fiduciary of an organization’s retirement plan. You are in charge of all the behind-the-scene actions of the retirement plan at your company, ensuring the company’s actions and the plan itself are compliant, and that participants are taking full advantage of the plan available to them. That sounds like quite the role, but what details does it entail? This post will give you a high-level overview of the daily responsibilities of a plan administrator and or fiduciary, so you know the purpose and importance of the role. First things ..read more

The Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) outlines the minimum standards for how a retirement plan is to be operated. This includes outlining who is considered a plan fiduciary, plan trustee, or plan administrator, and the responsibilities that come with each position. These roles are not to be taken lightly. Fiduciaries are required to act prudently, follow the terms of plan documents and avoid conflicts of interest. And if they don’t? Fiduciaries who don’t follow these principles of conduct could be held personally liable to restore losses to the plan or to restore any profits made ..read more

No plan sponsor wants his or her company in the headlines for being sued for how their company’s 401(k) plan was improperly managed! Yet, it is becoming more and more frequent to see these types of stories in the news. One area that plan sponsors should carefully review and audit in detail is fees charged on managed accounts—a service increasingly utilized as the default investment option in plans that creates a custom allocation for participants based on a wide variety of data points (i.e. age, income, savings rate, etc.) What went wrong? So what went wrong for these companies that are being ..read more

Income is an essential part of living a well-balanced life. It’s the main reason most everyone takes time from their day to work and earn a meaningful living for themselves and their loved ones. Work is where it all happens, and because of that, employers should play a key role in setting their employees up for success by promoting and supporting their financial wellness. Financial wellness has many definitions, but at its core can be understood as how prepared an individual is in meeting their present and future financial commitments. How one is doing financially can often bleed into how they ..read more