Insights for retirement plan advisors.
Field notes, frameworks, and a point of view on where the retirement plan industry, and the technology behind it, is going.
The Unbundling Is Over
The last decade rewarded a separate app for each job: one for benchmarking, one for monitoring, one for documents, one for outreach. In regulated work, that sprawl leaves you with a record you cannot reconcile, an audit you cannot run, and an advisor reduced to glue between systems that disagree.
Read the postThe More AI Does, the More Your Judgment Is Worth
The fear is that AI commoditizes the advisor. In regulated work the opposite happens. When execution costs almost nothing, the premium moves to the part a machine cannot own: judgment, accountability, and a name on the line.
ReadThe Wall Between Wealth and Retirement Is Coming Down
For decades, the workplace plan and the household balance sheet were two jobs done by two different people. The participant never understood why, and she had a point.
ReadIn Regulated Work, the Data Layer Wins, Not the Biggest Model
The firms that win with AI in retirement plan work will own one trustworthy record per plan and the guardrails that make AI output checkable. Model size matters far less.
ReadScale Was the Enemy of Care. It Isn't Anymore.
For a century, personal attention went to the balances big enough to justify a phone call. That was arithmetic, and the arithmetic has changed.
ReadEvery New Plan Now Has to Auto-Enroll
SECURE 2.0's auto-enrollment mandate went live for new 401(k) and 403(b) plans with the 2025 plan year. This post covers who is covered, the EACA mechanics, the five exceptions, and the fact that decides coverage: the adoption date.
ReadYour Fund Scoring Should Not Come From a Fund Manufacturer
When the firm that scores the funds also builds and sells funds, the score has a thumb on the scale. In a fiduciary process, independence is a requirement.
ReadRetirement Plans Were Built to Save. Now They Have to Pay Out.
The 401(k) was engineered for the climb. The first big wave of participants retiring on one is exposing how little the system was built for the way down.
ReadYour High Earners Are About to Lose the Pre-Tax Catch-Up
Final IRS regulations now require catch-up contributions from higher earners to go Roth, and a plan without a Roth feature has a hard call to make before the rule takes effect. This post covers the trigger, the timeline, and the coordination work that has to happen in 2026.
ReadThe QDIA Decision Most Committees Would Rather Not Reopen
The default investment is the most consequential choice in the plan, and many committees set it once and move on. The fiduciary work sits in the process of choosing and monitoring it.
Read3(38) or 3(21): Which Fiduciary Hat Are You Wearing?
The phrase "we outsourced the fiduciary risk" gets used in finals meetings as if it settles the matter. This post explains what 3(21) and 3(38) move, and what stays with the sponsor no matter who signs what.
ReadThe Part-Time Eligibility Rule That Sneaks Up on Plans
SECURE 2.0 cut long-term part-time eligibility from three years to two. The policy is easy. Plans get caught on the hours counting, the payroll coordination, and the vesting dates.
ReadThe Fee Lawsuit You Can See Coming: What a Defensible Process Looks Like in 2026
ERISA fee litigation is now a permanent feature of the business, and after Cunningham v. Cornell a routine service contract can survive a motion to dismiss on thin allegations. The advisor's main deliverable is shifting from picking funds to building an evidentiary record.
ReadState Mandates Are Quietly Writing Your Next Plan
Auto-IRA laws now require small employers to pick between a state program and a plan of their own. Each of those letters is a warm prospect, and the advisor who stays silent leaves the door open for whoever calls first.
ReadPooled Employer Plans: One Plan, Many Employers
PEPs let unrelated employers share one plan and hand the running of it to a professional, which is useful. Watch the part of the pitch that says your client stops being a fiduciary.
ReadWhy Collective Investment Trusts Keep Taking Over the Menu
CITs are taking share from mutual funds in DC plans, mostly on cost. The math holds up. So do the tradeoffs, and so does the paperwork you need to defend the swap.
ReadYour Recordkeeper Is Now Competing for the Rollover
Core recordkeeping has been bid down toward break-even, so the platforms you recommend now make their money on the participant directly, above all on the rollover at retirement. The durable response is to care for participants well enough that they choose to stay.
ReadWhy Human in the Loop Is a Feature, Not a Limitation
AI can read a plan document in seconds. In fiduciary work, the right design keeps a person in control, with citations and confidence scores to check against. Confidence you cannot verify is the wrong trait for this job.
ReadRetirement Plan Software Is a Decade Behind. Here Is Why.
Wealth management got modern software years ago. Retirement plan advisors still live in spreadsheets, PDFs, and recordkeeper portals built for someone else's job. The gap has specific causes, and closing it is harder than it looks.
ReadThe $11,250 Window: A Late-Career Savings Play for Ages 60 to 63
The super catch-up gives participants in a narrow four-year age band a meaningfully larger contribution limit, if the plan adopts it. This post covers how to turn an optional provision into a real planning conversation.
ReadYou Can't Sell What You Can't Hand Off
An advisory practice built entirely inside the founder's head is a high income with an expiration date. What turns it into something you can sell is the documentation you keep telling yourself is overhead.
ReadEverything Gets Bid to Zero Except Trust
Most components of a retirement practice are sliding toward commodity pricing. Trust is the exception, because a competitor cannot copy it or scale it. Build the practice around it.
ReadAdvisors Undercharge for the Only Work That's Hard to Replace
The lineup and the quarterly report anchor your fee. They are also among the first things software will do for free. The work you give away is the work worth paying for.
ReadOversight Isn't an Event
The quarterly committee meeting grew out of how long it took to assemble the data by hand. When oversight happens only at meetings, the plan goes unwatched for most of the quarter.
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