Saturday, August 16, 2008

403(b) Questions

I received some questions regarding the 403(b) plan and below are the answers provided by staff (thank you) after some tension ...

Q. What companies bid on the RFP (I assume there was an RFP that went out)?

A. Yes, an RFP was solicited to the public via CCPS bid board and the Maryland Independent Newspaper. Former 403b providers and vendors that were registered with CCPS via on-line registration received automatic notifications. Eight (8) firms responded:
ING
Horace Mann
Hartford
Great West
Felder Group
AXA Equitable
AIG Valic
MetLife

Q. What companies assisted the BOE in the decision making process (consultants or other financial companies)?

A. Goldberg, Yolles and Lepore Consulting Group Wachovia Securities, LLC. This firm manages the MABE insurance funds, the MABE OPEB investment fund, and the CCBOE classified pension plan investments. Their review was independent. In addition, there was an internal review committee consisting of senior staff from the Finance and Human Resources divisions which made final recommendations.

Q. What were the deciding factors that led to the successful bid by MetLife?
A. Each firm was evaluated based on the following criterion which was included in the RFP:
Market Position- Ranked by Experience w/segments
Fund Selection
Fund Cost Ranking
Implementation
Asset Based Cost Ranking
Administration Services
Education
Surrender Schedule and fees
Local Presence/ Capability
Responsiveness of Respondents
Website/ Employee Communication
Trend Line for Business Growth
Current CCBOE market penetration

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Your employees will have more money if you allow them to pick a diversified, core, mix of no load, low cost index funds at Vanguard or Fidelity and not force them to pay a fee for advice. Just think about it. Not one expert that you hired has a track record of picking managed funds and/or asset-allocaton, target-date, lifecycle, lifestyle and balanced funds that beat a diversified mix of beat no load index funds in performance--long term. See? Also, every adviser on your RFP list has inherent conflicts of interest, so what good is their advice on how you should set up a 403(b) plan? You can do yourself and your employees a favor by setting up a truly low cost plan.

Anonymous said...

" every adviser on your RFP list has inherent conflicts of interest"


Please explain.

Anonymous said...

that comment doesn't make sense...Whatever funds MetLife offers is truely better, and less expensive then the old Annuities that all those companies used to sell...