Everyone is Entitled to Advice on Their 401(k)

Earlier this week, on October 24, 2011, the Department of Labor issued a press release detailing their new final regulations on improving workers access to investment advice on their company retirement plan accounts.

This final ruling is great news for all current company retirement plan participants.  Now any worker at any company cannot be denied access to investment advice that can help better preserve their company retirement plan principal as well as grow the value of their company retirement plan account.

In study after study, it has been found that access to investment advice improves the investment decisions and investment performance in individual company retirement plan accounts.

Access to better financial information and professional investment advice will improve company retirement plan account investment decisions and minimize bad investment results.

Under these new regulations, company retirement plan participants can now gain access to investment advice from more investment advice providers.  This advice can be made available either over the telephone, via the internet or in person.

All these new changes will take place on December 27, 2011.

The best news is that investment advice can only be make available under specific safeguards and has to be free from any conflicts of interest.

As usual with any government agency, this news falls into the “better late than never” category.  For several years, there have been sources of independent, unbiased and conflict-free investment advice for individual Minnesota company 401(k) retirement plan participants.

Now, this announcement makes it official!

Ric Lager
Lager & Company, Inc.