The choice between stand-alone retirement funds vs umbrella funds is not a simple one, but it’s a decision every business must at least consider as it fulfils its promise to act in the best interests of its employees’ financial futures.
FLEXIBILITY
Flexibility is, of course, linked to control, and employers sometimes fear losing control over the important aspects of the retirement fund when moving to an umbrella fund, or having to pay excessive costs to get the flexibility they want or need. Ssee whether you are locked into the sponsor’s products.
COSTS
Ultimately, retirement funds exist to maximise employees’ retirement outcomes. That’s why the money spent (or saved) in a stand-alone compared with an umbrella fund is such an important factor. These include asset management fees, trading costs, investment consulting fees, etc. With umbrella funds having greater assets, the reduced costs could be carried over to the members.
GOVERNANCE
The time required to manage the fund. Given that a stand-alone fund’s trustees tend to be company employees, moving to an umbrella fund will free them up to do their primary job.
Other costs include communication, particularly risk costs. Because the cost of death and disability benefits increase over time, it’s important to do a price comparison every year to make sure you are still getting the best deal.
MANAGEMENT
Stand-alone retirement funds vs umbrella funds have the same level of governance requirements, which means that both sets of trustees have the same legal liability. A stand-alone fund usually does not have professional trustees, since they tend to be company employees. Are they able to stay up to date with the latest legislative requirements? Are they qualified to make the right decisions about investments? You can outsource those responsibilities, but you can’t abdicate them.
All company boards must ensure that they are able to make a sound decision based on the advice of specialists advising them. If need be, obtain a second opinion.
Did you write the article yourself or you hired someone to do it?
I was wondering because I am a site owner too and
struggle with writing new content all the time.
Someone told me to use AI to do create articles which I
am kinda considering because the output is almost written by human. Here is the sample
content they sent me – https://sites.google.com/view/best-ai-content-writing-tools/home
Let me know if you think I should go ahead and use AI.
I think that you should try AI. You can always stop using it. My articles I write from a horde of tax, law and other sites of interest I’ve been following for years and saving articles of interest in a library. It’s free and takes about 15mins per day to track comment and save. Over time it positions you as an expert in these fields.
Thanks for the comment. I also hold a horde of articles on GRC but have not really been using AI to assist. Good idea. Thanks for that.
Yes, I think that you should get your teeth into AI. However, instead of trying to write new content, why not focus on tax, law or other sites of interest where you can save articles in a library and then write about similar subjects?