One Less Furrowed Brow For 401k Plan Sponsors

There was a sneak preview of the Dept of Labor's preliminary guidance on setting up 401k default investment options. These situations occur when 401k participants fail to select an investment option for their 401k contributions or a 401k default fund is used in 401k plans with automatic enrollment features.

Currently, 401k plan sponsors are rethinking their default fund decisions because they are concerned about the risk associated with their fiduciary responsibility and about the risk of the earnings performance of the default investments of those participants who failed to choose any.

When a participant fails to make a choice, the default fund is the choice made for them by the plan