For many employees, what to do with a 401(k) plan at retirement has been a foregone conclusion: Roll it over.
The opportunity to hang on to assets after employees retire — and in turn keep costs down for the whole plan—isn’t lost on defined-contribution plan advisors. In a 2021 Pimco survey of retirement plan consultants and advisors, 36% of firms said they were actively encouraging participants to stay put in their plans following retirement.
If you’re pondering whether to leave the assets behind or roll them over for retirement, here are the key questions to ask, listed in order of importance.
What’s the quality of the 401(k)?
This is the key question when deciding whether to leave assets in a plan or roll them over. You should assess the quality of the plan on three key metrics: quality and breadth of the investment lineup, investment fees for the fund options in the plan, and any administrative fees that …