New 401k Regulation to Give Participants Estimated Monthly Retirement Income on Account Statements

As reviewed by a recent article from InvestmentNews, there is even more regulation in the works for the retirement industry. New 401(k) disclosures may require many 401(k) investment providers to give a “monthly estimate” for what their current retirement savings amount to. While lots of big name investment providers in the industry are against this idea, it’s hard to argue that this information won’t be helpful to participants in 401(k) plans to know how they should be saving.

InvestmentNews reports that these providers claim that the regulation will be giving an unfair advantage to annuity products which won’t be required to report this. While this does seem to be true, many providers don’t disagree with the concept of reporting these figures to participants, just with the way it’s being enforced and that the “proposed manner is inflexible and ineffective.” Many of the tools that are available to recordkeepers and advisors (even our Portfolio Crash Test and its RetireRisk) can effectively demonstrate savings, withdrawals, and risk all at once.

The largest defined contribution plan in the country, the Federal Thrift Savings Plan, is already doing a practice just like this: giving their participants a monthly retirement “paycheck” estimate on their annual statements. Whether you agree or disagree that this should be required, being prepared for some of the ongoing and incoming legislation for the retirement industry by already using some tools that can effectively demonstrate potential retirement withdrawals can’t hurt.