If there is one thing that is near certain it is that one or more investment options
offered in the plan might not work out as expected. Monitoring plan investments
for excessive volatility, manager changes and just plain lousy performance is important
if the plan is going to maximize the opportunity it offers participants.
Fees are an important aspect of the plan to monitor. We run across many plans
where trustees and participants aren't fully informed as to how much they are paying
in fees each year. This lack of knowledge isn't necessarily due to lack of
interest. Often the providers of plan services do not fully disclose arrangements
they have with mutual fund companies or provide rather murky disclosure of what they
charge participants investing in the plan.
As we discuss in our investment selection section low fees do not necessarily translate
into superior performance. Consistently superior performance net of fees it
a truer measure of the value a fund provides participants in our view.
Even
if you embrace our point of view, however, many plans pay higher than necessary fees
for what are very good performing underlying funds. Most investment funds have different share classes
and some of these classes levy higher fees than others. The underlying fund
itself is the same it's just the level of fees that change. For example at
American Funds an R1 share costs are roughly 1.25% higher than the cost of an R5
share. Same fund - different cost structure.
Once you have found the funds you want to offer in the plan make sure the share
class is appropriate for the plan and that you aren't paying more than necessary.
Over a period of twenty or thirty years an additional 1/2% per year in fees can
reduce the ending value of a retirement account by many thousands of dollars. In fact, given a long
enough time period, it could cut the value of your nest egg almost in half!
As these fees are asset based, the actual dollar amount paid in fees can increase each year as the value of your account increases.
High fees can reduce the value of even the best performing investments.