Philosophy
Clarity Retirement Partners is a mission-driven organization; that mission is to “positively impact the retirement outcomes of American workers. We believe American workers deserve the ability to retire with dignity, and the ability to stay comfortably retired.”
As a firm, our focus is to understand the objectives of your retirement and insurance needs and help you develop a plan designed to provide an efficient, affordable and effective means of achieving your desired outcomes. We meet with you to determine your needs and goals, present an analysis and discuss our recommendations. Together, we implement the recommendations and monitor your progress.
Focus
Enhanced retirement and insurance plan design
Cost/Fee Management
Individual education & advice
Recordkeepers - Plan Administrators
We work with many different plan recordkeepers and are agnostic regarding our recommendations. We strive to identify the recordkeeper that provides the best fit for your plan, your objectives, and your employees and then negotiate the services and pricing. Some generic thoughts on recordkeepers:
Questions To Ask Your Recordkeeper
Are there less expensive versions of the investments in our plan?
If I do NOT use your proprietary investments, will your Cost/Fees increase?
Will you support an independent third-party fee and service benchmarking?
Recordkeepers are for-profit entities and are in the business to make money. They are under no obligation to provide the lowest price to you, nor are they required to divulge their profit margins to you. We work on behalf of our clients to negotiate the fees and services you receive from your recordkeeper and other providers. As DOL guidance suggests we regularly benchmark the services and fees of all of your providers, including ourselves, through an independent third-party provider. The increasingly competitive nature of the retirement business continues to drive down fees and expenses.
Recordkeepers prefer that you use their own proprietary, name-brand funds because the profit margins are generally larger than on outside funds … and, again, they are not required to divulge their profit margins.
Recordkeepers often offer a large number of versions of the same fund. The versions may differ in the delivery vehicle such as mutual fund, Collective Investment Trust (CIT), or Separate Account. More importantly, there is often a large difference in fees charged between different ’share’ classes of the same fund. We strive for transparency and seek institutional pricing for each of our clients.
Advisors
We have great respect for financial advisors and their work; as with any other field, the vast majority of advisors are honest, hardworking and client-focused. We frequently refer clients to advisors who possess a particular expertise that we do not. In our experience though, many advisors are generalists; like Big Box retailers they wear multiple hats and sell a little bit of everything including retirement plans. We find it hard to be an expert in multiple disciplines and feel that the complexity and increasing scrutiny directed at retirement plans and plan sponsors warrants a singular focus.
Clarity Retirement Partners manages the retirement, insurance and annuity needs of corporations, families and individuals. We don’t sell individual stocks, bonds or mutual funds, nor do we provide estate planning - we manage retirement and insurance plans … period. We do have numerous strategic alliances with advisors who specialize in these other services and would be happy to assist you in your search for those services.
Questions To Ask Your Advisor
Are Retirement and Insurance needs a primary focus of your practice?
How many years of experience do you have?
Are you and your firm free of all conflicts of interests?
Is your firm related in any way to investment or insurance companies?