A fiduciary duty, the obligation to uphold the clients’ interest above all else, is Phyllis Borzi’s long sought and tunneled for goal that we at Castle Rock uphold and agree whole-heartedly with. Together, our standards are the highest in the retirement industry. She says that, like in the movie Groundhog Day, bad policies keep being relived over and over. We want to stop the origin of the problem: the poor incentive structure.
Her aim is to make incentives to advisors as straightforward as possible in retirement plans so that the resulting fees will not surprise retirees and leave them with less than they planned.
When investment advisors do not sign up to be fiduciaries to the plans they advise, it leads to corruption and changes the fee structures of these plans so that the retirees no longer have the same security after 65 (typical retirement age). Liability to the Plan Sponsor also changes, and the integrity of the investment advisor themselves is challenged as well.
One example of how the Plan Sponsors are hung out to dry is the John Hancock case, where unreasonable fees were not seen as criminal because of this legal loophole.
Sign your support for reform here at SaveOurRetirement.com!
Michele L. Suriano, Accredited Investment Fiduciary™, is president of Castle Rock Investment Company, a woman-owned SEC registered investment advisory firm serving qualified retirement plans. www.CastleRockInvesting.com
Castle Rock Investment Company, formed in 2006, is an independent woman-owned SEC-registered investment adviser located in Castle Rock, Colorado. We specialize in individual financial plans and qualified service plans.