Your 403(b) Plan: Can You
Set It and Forget It?
What is Going on With
Your 403(b)Plan?
Presented by
Georgette Geller, ChFC, CLU
Executive Vice President
AXA Advisors, LLC
AGE 85199 (5/13) (Exp 5/15)
7/28/2017
Disclaimer

Georgette Geller does not provide legal or tax advice; nor can anything in these materials be used to
avoid the payment of income tax or penalties assessed by a US tax authority.

Georgette H. Geller, ChFC, CLU a registered representative and investment advisor representative
who offers securities and investment advisory services through AXA Advisors, LLC (NY, NY 212-3144600), member FINRA/SIPC, and is an agent who offers annuity and insurance products through AXA
Network, LLC and/or its insurance agency subsidiaries. AXA Network, LLC does business in California
as AXA Network Insurance Agency of California, LLC and, in Utah, as AXA Network Insurance Agency
of Utah, LLC. AXA Advisors and AXA Network are affiliated companies and do not provide tax or legal
advice. Representatives may transact business, which includes offering products and services and/or
responding to inquiries, only in state(s) in which they are properly registered and/or licensed. Your
receipt of this e-mail does not necessarily indicate that the sender is able to transact business in your
state.
7/28/2017
Measuring Your 403(b) Plan’s
Success
• Have you put compliance practices in place to comply
with the final 403(b) regulations?
• Final regulations found online, effective January 1,
2009, forced you to quickly adopt a plan document;
and put agreements in place so that product
providers (or TPAs if you have one) would agree to
cooperate with information sharing for compliance
purposes.
• Are you ready for that?
7/28/2017
Is That Enough?
• How many of your employees are participating in your 403(b)
plan?
• If participation rates are low, can you take steps to increase
participation? Remember: if your employees save in voluntary
plans, the probability is they will retire at normal retirement
ages. You can read more about this in a study, “The Difference
an Adviser Can Make,” reported in Plan Sponsor, January 16th
2012.
• If they do not save their own dollars, they may continue working
well past retirement age.
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Budget Issues
As communicated by the Association of School
Business Officials, if your employees continue to
work to advanced ages, more budget dollars are
expended for higher salaried long-term
employees
Participation in voluntary plans help reduce the
number of long-term employees working to later
ages
7/28/2017
A New Twist In Recent IRS Audits:
In an interview with Senior Staff Specialists of the IRS Audit
Division, Field Examiners are looking at the participation
rates of employees!
Recent reports where participation was 18-20%, IRS field
examiners are asking employers to share their employee
education plan.
>they appear to be questioning whether “meaningful
opportunity” to enroll/make changes is being provided
7/28/2017
What is Your Education Plan?
What Should it be?
A good 403(b) education plan should include various methods of
employee communication:
>on line tools (provided by the product providers) for computer savvy
self-starters (self-starters are estimated at some 15% of your employees)
according to a study from the National Education Association.
>financial literacy seminars (including pension plan, social security, and
both 403(b) and 457(b) plans)
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Methods to Potentially Increase
Participation, Cont.
Face to face meetings with financial professionals
>based on numerous studies in Plan Sponsor, Benefit
News and Financial Planning.com, demonstrating the
increased participation rates, improved investment
results, larger contribution rates
(For copies of some of those studies, just let me know!)
Frequent enrollment and change dates to meet life style
changes of employees
>Once a year is not often enough!
7/28/2017
Where Can You Turn for Help?
Your most-trusted product providers can manage your
educational program for you (and, focus on getting
your other providers involved), or,
Your TPA (if any) can work with you and the product
providers to plan and implement your program
You or other key administrators can/should
communicate the plan to your employees
7/28/2017
How Can You Measure Success?
Ask payroll personnel to compare the participation rate
prior to implementation of the program to the rate at
the end of each year of the program
If not satisfactory, gather input from the involved
parties, implement any needed changes
7/28/2017
The Positives of Success
Better management of budget dollars (more to work with) If
higher paid employees timely retire, they can be replaced
with employees at beginning salaries.
Possible improvement in employee perception of your
sponsorship of plans for them
Fulfillment of the universal availability requirement of
providing “meaningful opportunity” to take advantage of
your 403(b) plan
7/28/2017
Questions?
THANK YOU!
7/28/2017