Advisor Solutions - 401(k) Plan Recordkeeping

As a retirement plan advisor, your customers count on you to help them navigate the waters of plan establishment, investment selection, and compliance. You specialize in building and monitoring plan fund lineups while we specialize in the back office tasks to make sure the plan operates smoothly. Together, we can offer your plan sponsor clients a comprehensive retirement solution.

We offer the following services to every advisor we do business with:

Plan design assistance

Every organization has different needs when it comes to establishing a retirement plan. To address these needs, plan sponsors ask for your assistance. Lincoln Trust recognizes this and has staff with the expertise to explain the available options when you’re designing a customized retirement plan for your clients. Options include Safe Harbor, New Comparability/Cross-tested, and QACA (qualified automatic contribution arrangement enrollment) (safe harbor automatic enrollment) plan types. We can help you understand the various adoption agreement and profit sharing options.

Personalized service

Because your time is precious, we offer a truly personalized experience to you and your staff. Oftentimes in the small, and sometimes even in the mid-size plan market, both the investment advisor and plan sponsor are required to call a generic toll-free number and speak to a customer service representative. Lincoln Trust provides you and your plan sponsor clients with a single point of contact: an experienced and dedicated relationship manager, regardless of plan or book-of-business size.

Proactive communication

Lincoln Trust relationship managers actively monitor your plans and proactively engage plan sponsors in compliance conversations if the need arises. These conversations focus on:

• Ways to prevent a plan from failing a nondiscrimination test
• Alternatives available for correcting a failed test
• Legislative changes and the potential impact to the plan
• IRS Form 5500 filing
• Year end preparation
• Mid-year or projected nondiscrimination testing for plans concerned about failing
• Late contributions and corrective measures

Full fee transparency

While some providers may wait until the 408(b)(2) and 404(a)(5) fee disclosures regulations are effective to clearly disclose their fees to plan sponsors and participants, Lincoln Trust is proud to have been a leader in fee disclosure. While we have several enhancements awaiting implementation in order to adhere to these requirements, we have always clearly disclosed fees. Participants can view them on the Web site and in their quarterly statements. Plan sponsors will see any revenue sharing payments we’ve received and applied to their quarterly invoices. Our fees are independent of investment selection; unlike many providers, our explicit per-participant and asset- based fees will not vary based on the funds selected for the plan. Since we pass back any revenue sharing payments received to offset plan costs, you are free to choose a plan lineup of all institutional share classes, all funds with 12(b)(1) or service fees, or a mixture of the two. Rest assured: our fees don’t change based on your investment decisions.

Participant education

When it comes to saving for retirement, some people need more assistance than others. We also know that no two plan advisors are alike; some may wish to provide participant education while others may prefer that this be handled by the recordkeeper. If you fall into the later category, Lincoln Trust can deliver customized enrollment presentations to your clients to increase plan participation. If you wish to perform the education yourself, we can supply you with our electronic presentation so you can adjust it to your education style.

Do you want fiduciary support or an open architecture solution?

Your desired level of involvement with plans determines the best product we can offer you. For advisors who are new to the retirement plan space or don’t have the time or desire to write an investment policy statement, perform fund selection and monitor performance, our Advantage Plan product offers these fiduciary support services for only 3 basis points!

For advisors who already offer full or co-fiduciary support and want the freedom of choosing amongst 24,000 mutual funds and 900 ETFs for their plan clients, check out our Custom Plan.