Top 9 401(k) Recordkeepers Ranked & Analyzed

[0:04] Speaker A: If the actors go. [0:25] JD: 1, 2, 3, PDC, boom. All right, welcome everybody to episode three of Retireholics. Episode three. [0:41] Mark: Surprised we made it this far. We didn't get canceled yet. [0:43] JD: No, we haven't been canceled. [0:44] Mark: Shocking. [0:45] JD: I'm going to quickly go over what we're going to cover today. We are going to start off by reviewing a recent plan sponsor magazine annual record keeper survey. So we've got the. We're going to go through the top nine record keepers based on total plans. We're also going to have an in depth, no holds barred conversation around payroll providers, ADP paychecks for the most part in the doing, the administration compliance side of things and kind of the drawbacks or cons there. We are going to. What's it called? Dial. Call Paul. [1:29] Mark: No, it's phone a friend. [1:30] Chad: No, it's phone a friend. [1:31] JD: What is it? [1:32] Mark: Better call Paul. [1:33] JD: Better call Paul. That's what we're doing. Better call Paul. We're going to call our founder, my father. I don't call him my father on the phone. And we're going to quiz, try to stump him with three retirement plan questions. So that will be our basic agenda today. Some other things might sneak in as we go through it, but that'll be our basic agenda. We are, it's clear that we are an Internet sensation at this point because we've gone viral. [2:04] Chad: Absolutely. [2:06] JD: We have. Like we're gonna get one of those [2:07] Mark: YouTube plaques sooner or later. [2:09] JD: Over a hundred people have watched the show. But in all seriousness, serious seriousness, we have had over 100 people have watched triple digits. I've even had people reach out to me directly, ask questions, want to know when the next episode is and things like that. So we're building some, some slow momentum. [2:27] Mark: People. People as in wine? [2:29] JD: No, no, no. I had actually, we had actually done a small blast this SoCal where three different people had reached out to me that I talked specifically about the show. [2:38] Mark: Speaking about Soc. SoCal. Where's that guy? [2:40] JD: Oh, good point. Thank you. So Justin McNeil is not here today. He's our Southern California sales consultant because he is live and in color down, taking a vacation day or something for future episodes. We'll either fly his butt up here or we'll Skype him in or do something like that. Just imagine him sitting over. [3:02] Chad: Mark's actually sitting on him right now. Sorry, Jesse. [3:05] JD: Maybe we could throw a picture of him over there with his contact information. So we did. Thanks for that. And in addition to that, if you go to www.retireholics.com the episodes are there now, so we have a webpage and you can put in your email address and be updated on upcoming shows and whatnot. So we're making some progress. We're making some progress. [3:29] Chad: We're pretty much getting more hits and emails from, from that site than Fred Reich gets in a given week. [3:37] JD: But like every retireholic show, we kick it off with Mr. Johansen here and beer 30. [3:45] Chad: This is from Deschutes Brewery, which comes from a nice microbrew area of Bend, Oregon. It is an ipa. [3:56] Mark: Pine drops. [3:57] Chad: Yeah. Well, I was gonna get to the name. I'm gonna read. Wait till you hear how they describe it. [4:01] Mark: I hope it doesn't taste like pine trees. [4:02] Chad: Well, just wait in. So here's the description on the box because it's too good to replicate. In the open forest surrounding the Pine Drops Trail, there stands a rare tree, a pine that instead of SAP drips a crisp, light bodied golden ale. An irresistible hop forward IPA crafted with chinook and experimental hops. And if you don't believe the story, just take a sip. [4:31] JD: I didn't believe that story story. But that's good. It's very ipa. [4:37] Chad: Yeah, that is good. It's actually light. [4:39] Mark: It's got a, it's got a kick to it. [4:40] Chad: Usually the IPA is a little, you know, a little bold hoppy, but this one's pretty light. [4:45] JD: Eye drops. All right, here we go. We're going to jump right into our first subject matter and I'm going to bring over some visual props because you know, those are always cool. [4:54] Mark: There could be some issues with this. We didn't. [4:56] JD: I got a board. [4:57] Mark: Yeah, we didn't practice any of this. [4:59] JD: I got a board. See, we can get this to work here. [5:03] Mark: What's that picture up there by the way? [5:07] JD: That's Marky the Riveter. [5:08] Chad: Marky the Riveter. [5:09] JD: I think we can just get normal here. [5:12] Chad: There you go. [5:14] JD: Okay, so it's actually a pretty sought after magazine issue I think is the, the annual record keeper survey that plan sponsor magazine does. What this list is is the top nine based on total plans. So I'm not going to ask you to guess. We'll just start from the bottom and work our way up to the top in terms of total plans down here at number nine. And I want to say number nine is not a bad thing. [5:42] Chad: There's a lot behind you. [5:43] JD: Well, yeah, they're top 10 so it's a good thing. So Mass Mutual 32,981 plans, as many [5:52] Mark: as we did last year. [5:53] Speaker A: Right. [5:54] Chad: Pretty close. Yeah. I think you were like 31,000 or so. And I sat in on a pretty decent size point of sale this week with Massmutual. I was impressed. I was impressed with a part of their process of engaging employees in different educational campaigns that they have direct mailables to the folks house. They had seven different posts postcards that they walked them through that hit on certain topics. Talk about trying to get people engaged. Retirement readiness is what we are preaching out there. It's what everybody's talking about. It's a good way to get folks involved. Sending stuff directly to the house like that. [6:28] JD: So not surprising to you that they're on this list. Number eight nationwide is on your side. [6:37] Chad: My side. [6:39] Mark: Peyton Manning loves them. [6:42] JD: I like seeing those ads. That was cool. [6:44] Speaker A: Right? [6:45] JD: So this isn't very surprising either. Right. I know you guys are pretty big fans of this product. Mutual fund window fiduciary series, Fiduciary co fiduciary services. [6:56] Chad: Yeah. And some of the stuff they're doing, I kind of expected the industry to catch up with like the mutual fund [7:02] JD: window, Institutional share class transparency. [7:05] Chad: Yeah, it's, it's, it's in it. With each product enhancement there's something new that's valuable. [7:11] JD: So that's not their old logo. Yeah, they're the old little like bird logo. [7:18] Chad: I didn't know that was their old logo either. So you guys have both been doing this longer. That's cool. [7:23] JD: American funds coming in at number seven with just over 40,000 retirement plans. [7:29] Mark: That's huge. And they're great. Especially being a good low cost provider for a lot of startup plans. They can come in quick, get the job done and they do an excellent job. [7:40] JD: Big in the price. Well, for startups, absolutely. [7:44] Chad: And they make the life pretty easy for the advisory and for the client, making it pretty turnkey. [7:49] JD: Simple approach. And a super famous money manager. Right. I mean well known for their. [7:54] Chad: Well, that's a beautiful thing. You know the one knock on that startup product is that it's proprietary investments. You look at the investments that they [8:02] Mark: have in their track record. [8:04] Chad: The releasing that I got a few weeks back was Morningstar's top 51. They had 10 funds on Morningstar's top 51. [8:10] JD: Yeah. And their new products aren't like the old ones. They're not totally proprietary. No, there's just a lot of their own funds and they're proud of that. They have great, great funds. Number six, a census 44,579. You were going to add something with this that was Interesting. [8:30] Chad: It catches me a little surprised but I think that the main reason why this we've seen such a jump there is because they are the private label product for the small market Vanguard solution. [8:41] JD: And that product's been super high. [8:44] Chad: The term Vanguard sells itself in the marketplace I would say 40% of the time that we sit down with an advisor and they're asking about different products or clients asking about different products. Vanguards gets brought up as the investment solution. [8:59] JD: Now it also is a true open architecture platform. So that's something that's a positive cost [9:05] Chad: effective billable fees versus assets. It surprises me a bit to see them this high up. It wouldn't surprise me to see in total growth, but at 44,000 plans that caught me a little. [9:17] Mark: That means they're just getting some market share in a good way. [9:20] JD: Yeah, they are. [9:22] Mark: Voya, formerly known as they used to be ing. We've all seen the commercials. The orange money, good marketing. Yeah, absolutely. [9:31] Chad: We'll all remember those for years to come. [9:33] Mark: But they're, they're becoming a good partner of ours every year. We grow with them and great technology. Their websites are extremely highly rated and just really making a push this year and doing some big things. [9:47] JD: There's a lot of advertising those guys do. [9:49] Chad: Do you remember the. What's your number? Oh yeah, I remember that 20 years ago. I remember the guy standing up on the ladder cutting the, the bushes out front. [9:59] Mark: I remember seeing those numbers and going [10:02] JD: like a million or something like they have. [10:04] Speaker A: Good for you. [10:05] JD: Yeah. The coolest corporate color too. [10:07] Mark: Oh yeah, true, very true. [10:09] JD: All right, number four, we're getting up this list. Yeah, adp. [10:14] Chad: ADP expected. [10:16] JD: Yeah, yeah. [10:16] Mark: We'll talk about did they fail their ADP test. [10:18] JD: Let's move on to the next one. Principal. Principal Financial Group. 51,000. Just over 51,000. That's a big number. Very big. [10:29] Mark: First, first one across the 50 barrier. [10:31] JD: I know that's a partner significant jump there. [10:33] Chad: Yeah, yeah. Good partner, good people, great technology. Boots on the ground that really know the industry can bring valuable information. Everybody's practice and they have a product that really grows with plant size. You know, they're competitive in the startup market, they're great in the upper large market. And so there's a good vast array of opportunity there. [10:54] JD: I mean I like this list because it to me it's a really distinct gauge or measurement of who's popular in terms of. [11:00] Chad: Well, let's, let's think about this. I mean they're making an emphasis to go tpa, especially in the acquisition of artwork really TPA focused TPA only on record keeper direct making a push, but still pretty darn bundled. Making a very strong push towards the TPA marketplace. Only bundled, which we'll talk about. Really making a push to the TPA marketplace. So obviously we love you guys. [11:27] JD: No, it's good. These are, most of these are good partners and John Hancock at number two. So obviously that's a very story speech TVA friendly. I would say this is a very packaged platform. I've always seen it as very visually attractive. They have all the things you need. [11:45] Mark: They've got a ton of bells and whistles. [11:46] JD: Yeah, tons of bells and whistles. [11:48] Chad: Good. I think my biggest piece with Hancock when I'm, when I'm preaching the product is as one of their local wholesalers calls it, their local concierge. So they have boots on the ground for education and enrollment and fiduciary reviews. That, that is their sole job is to be alive and in color. They're paid upon retention of clients. And so you have really hand holding support for an advisor's practice. [12:12] JD: So who's number one? [12:14] Chad: I think we all know. [12:15] JD: Is it us? Right? [12:16] Mark: Oh, wait, no. [12:18] JD: Oh boy. Paycheck. Wow. So we're gonna dive into this conversation but while we're at it, I mean why is paychecks number one? And maybe I'm biased, but they're not just number one. [12:33] Chad: They're. [12:34] JD: They have access to, I don't know, hundreds of thousands, maybe a million. I should do my research clients that they do payroll for. And so they're constantly pounding on them and dripping on them and getting these opportunities. There are other. If you, if you take a look at the, the Plan sponsor magazine, the 2015 June issue, you will see other rankings. So they'll show you that these are very small plans, albeit, you know, lots of them. [13:02] Chad: Kind of drill like average asset size or. Yeah. [13:05] JD: And participant counts. They have all those rankings. By the way, if you check out the magazine too. I'm, I'm quoted in the, the COVID article back there. [13:13] Speaker A: What? [13:15] Chad: It's all because of retireholics. They saw the videos and they go, we've got to get this CEO on here. [13:21] JD: So this is your list. I think that's valuable not only for plan sponsors to see and see this, but for advisors that are out there prospecting, marketing, selling retirement plans. This is interesting to see in terms of the players that are committed to this marketplace. [13:35] Chad: And there are, you know, we get the question all the time, you know, who would you recommend for this client? For this size. And obviously we know each of the partners very well. There are some that are not on this list for a couple of reasons. Many of them because they choose to be more dynamic, smaller providers. There are others, for example, Transamerica, who has a great emphasis in the multiple employer marketplace. And I don't think they're going to count that as multiple plans. [14:02] JD: I noticed Empower, AKA Great Less on a lot of those other rankings. So they're also a big player in space. You see companies like the standard. That's not on your. So I think your point is, hey, just because you're not on this list doesn't mean that you're. You're not a good record keeper or provider. These are just the ones that are doing big numbers. I built up this. This client base over time. All right, what's next? Oh, here we go. Let's wait for that. Everybody knows this is the wheel of ice and we will spin to see who will chug a Smirnoff Ice. [14:43] Mark: It's all Chad this time. You want to bet on this one? [14:46] JD: This time, who it's gonna be? [14:47] Chad: I bet. I bet two strokes the next time we play golf. [14:51] Mark: Done. I'm gonna. [14:52] JD: And it's spinning and spinning and it's not me. Who is it? I can't tell. It's Mark. [15:03] Mark: Oh, it's me. [15:04] JD: It's Mark. It's Mark. Oh, that's too bad. Hand. [15:08] Chad: Can you bring the Smirnoff in, please? I'll even use the opener for you, Mark. [15:13] Speaker A: Wow. [15:13] Mark: And my sensitive hands. [15:15] Chad: Don't want to open them up. [15:19] JD: Hold on. [15:20] Mark: Time out. Shout out to the warriors for winning the championship. [15:22] Chad: I don't think that camera can see you, but you can turn that direction. [15:25] Mark: Look at all directions. Can see me. [15:26] JD: Just drink your Smirnoff. [15:28] Mark: I was trying to delay the inevitable. [15:36] JD: I don't think I could do that. Very well done. [15:38] Chad: Impressive. [15:42] JD: Can you clear those caps? [15:43] Mark: Do you want me to describe how that tastes? [15:45] Chad: Yes. I think we all know what it is. That's going to be a beer. [15:48] Speaker A: Beer quarter. [15:49] Mark: One of these very hoppy. Sugar. Sugar hops. [15:54] JD: Oh, wow. [15:55] Mark: Thank you. [15:56] JD: Food. Sorry, sir, I don't have a tip for you. All right, so very good job, Mark. Very proud of you. We're gonna jump right into kind of a more in depth conversation on the payroll providers and how they tackle the compliance administration work. But to do that for any plan sponsors that are watching or advisors that are watching, I want to kind of set the stage. And I mentioned it earlier that payroll providers And I'm talking primarily about adp and Paychecks have built up this client base because they dominate the payroll business. I mean those are the two massive payroll vendors. So obviously back in the day they thought, well geez, we have access to all these clients, how do we upsell them? How do we make more money from our current client base? 401k was a natural progression for them. The last thing we want to do here is sling mud or talk negative about others. But when it comes to the payroll vendors, it's just kind of an industry norm in that they try to dabble in what we do, they don't do it very well. And so we want to protect our clients and our advisor partners and have them be well informed about why they may not do the best job when it comes to administration and compliance. So I'd like to hit three parts if you could on that. [17:19] Chad: When you look at the list too, I mean they're 1 and 4. Yeah, 1 and 4. So obviously as industry professionals, you're going to be going up against those two providers often when you're competing on business and because of which we'll talk about, but because of retention rates and turnover, they're often who you're going to be competing with and hopefully winning against. So arming yourself with some of those nuances is important. [17:44] JD: I would say that in my career here, this is probably the most frequent request requests I've gotten from either an advisor or a plan sponsor is I'm considering going to the payroll or I'm up against payroll. What's the deal? Help me out. What you know, what do I need to understand about it? So that's what we want to cover [18:02] Chad: today you said naturally too, the 401k seems to be looked at as a feature of payroll. Right? Payroll processing, adp, automatic data processing and so many plans. They say that if we're already doing payroll there, why don't we do our 401k? [18:18] JD: There's right. [18:19] Chad: And so it's a, it's a common misconception that those two really need to be tied that closely together. [18:24] Mark: They're getting knocks on the door mostly probably through emails and whatnot, but reminders about it. You know, part of our goal is to knock on advisor store day in and day out. Imagine as a plan sponsor getting a knock on your door weekly. At some point you might just say, okay, it seems like a, like a good fit. [18:44] JD: Well, we'll reference this and I think a lot of you out there, if you're in this business You've seen this before, but this is an article written by an ERISA attorney and talking about this very subject. And to your point, one of the things that he mentions in this is that the only reason why these payroll providers are successful as they are is because that plan sponsors don't understand what it is that a third party administrator does. So they think that this should be easy. And by the way, that's exactly how they're sold to, right? Is that, oh my God, things are so difficult with your current administrator. If you came to us at paychecks or adp, things would be so much easier. We already have your data. It's all in the system. We're not going to bother you every year for census collection and, and all the, you know, because when you really think about it, and I'm okay to say this, even our clients, I think look at what we do and go, man, it's so complicated. And that's what we're trying to do, is make it easier for them. But that's definitely the pitch for the payroll providers. So let's try to isolate just three nuggets, three nuggets that, that the, the audience can take away if they're in this type of situation. [19:50] Mark: I'll throw out the first one and I'm going to reference into the, to the burp I just had was Smirnoff Ice. Burp is garbage in, garbage out. Okay, that was, that was not, not a good burp and especially combining it with pine drops. So I apologize. But so with, with payroll providers, obviously the data is only as good as the person or people inputting that data. So it goes in, you got to run compliance tests and you got to run off of that data. And if it's, if it's messed up, there's not a person, an intelligent person who's been doing this for a while back there to kind of check on it, make sure that it's okay. [20:31] Chad: So, you know, you bring in a [20:32] Mark: TPA for that purpose to say, when you submit that data to us, we're going to basically check it over and make sure that it's good. You're not going to necessarily get that when you dump in this data into [20:46] Chad: your payroll for 12 months and then [20:48] Mark: it spits out this report that you may or may not review and just say it's okay. And again, it could cause some problems, some hiccups down the line with your plan. It could be out of compliance. [21:01] JD: And that's point, that's point number one. Garbage in, garbage out. And I think I can add to that a little bit for, for our audience, but let's cover the other two and another one that I think that kind of coincides with that a little bit, but is we know through these ADP and through paychecks that you're typically not given one point of contact. So when it comes to a service model, you're kind of calling into that classic 1-800-number corporation and you don't know who you're going to get on the other line. And worse than that, the great majority of the people that are there you're gonna get have not been in the business very long. And I'm not trying to toot our own horn, but you got, our people here have been doing this for two decades. You call into paychecks and someone's on that desk behind that phone that's been doing it for six months, that means something. This is complicated business. So that your service model and the service support you get is something that's [21:53] Chad: a huge attached directly to that is a sense of accountability. I sat in a TPA kind of forum at, at&t park last week, I believe it was. And one of the big points that I heard every TPA tout was local. And my concept was if local is so important to you, what is it about local that folks want? And it's that sense of accountability. It's that if you're working with somebody local, it's people that care, it's people that you can see it in person and it's people that are going to make sure that things get accomplished. Too many times I've seen adp, if seen paychecks, plans that we take over and when we go to make sure 5,500 5007 have been filed and work has been done, what we see is that nothing had ever been done when it comes to the final outcome. And that's because often you get a package in the mail just like you get everything else from them. That's saran wrapped. That is your testing. And it's up to you to go in there, sign it and submit the 5,500. Now it's all electronically, so it's a little bit different, but nonetheless, the sponsor doesn't always open that package and there's nobody accountable picking up that phone line saying, hey, did you do this? We care about your business, we want to make sure it's done and we've [22:58] JD: given it to you. [22:59] Chad: It's your responsibility, it's your court, not right nor wrong. I think when you work with someone local especially most TPAs have a different culture about them where we really want to help. And it kind of leads to the third point in my point of view. When you talk about helping and designing these plans, these are intricate. They're unique. They're unique. And it requires quite a bit of design work. [23:25] JD: Inside joke when you set these things up. [23:28] Chad: And so what I've seen, and I've seen it happen over and over, is when these payroll companies are setting up programs, it's often a checkbox. Would you like, no waiting period, one month, three months, nine months or 12 months. And there's very little consultation as to what choosing three months versus nine months might have an effect on not only turnover, but also administrative tasks and setting. Think, setting the plan up. You look at vesting and how that might control retention rates. There's no consultation. The document's not very flexible. So from a design perspective, any of the plans that we get to see from ADP and paychecks just not being operated well, they weren't designed well from the beginning. [24:06] JD: Yeah. So those are, those are three things there that you combine those things, you end up with a very unsuccessful retirement. [24:13] Mark: It can seem cheap, been easy, but at the end of the day, maybe it's not efficient as you want it to be. [24:20] Chad: I have not seen this. I've not seen the data or the proof behind this. But we. I flew out to a partner event in Iowa and there were prior representatives of ADP and Paychex there and there was a conversation about retention rates. And they very clear they were 401k folks from those two. And it was, they were very clearly said that in their experience, they're 10, 12 years working on the 401k side. For those providers, that the retention rate was. Was roughly 18 months. Not on the payroll. They keep the payroll much longer. They do a great job there. But on the 401k, why is that? It's because of these kind of three topics. [24:59] JD: I want to give a story to back up Mark's point of garbage in, garbage out. And this was a client, maybe not too long ago. We won the business with an advisor. We moved them from paychecks to a new record keeper. And in the very first year that we did administration, they failed their ADP test. And I was involved in the sales process. So I got the phone call. The client was upset. I remember as the owner was like, how the hell could this happen? We moved you guys. This is horrible. Like, you guys suck, you know. And I said, well, I don't understand how this could have happened because the advisor had actually gone in and driven up attendance. And so I just, I couldn't figure it out. So finally went back to the prior testing that paychecks had done to figure out why they passed in previous years. And to make a long story short, it came down to the fact that the client was not keeping or recording data bursts in their system, their payroll system, because it was of no use to them. And so when the system, when the computer ran the test, it couldn't determine that the participants were age 18, that which was the eligibility age requirement. So just assumed like a computer does. Well, I can't determine that they're 18, so I'm not going to put them in the test. They're not eligible participants for the plan. So instead of being zeros, they weren't included in the test. And so I had to go back and explain. So that's a perfect example of how this stuff goes wrong. And so the last thing I'd say to wrap that up is that we think that it's cheap, we think that it's easy, but it's not cheap and it's not easy. When something like that happens and you get audited and you find out that you've been totally running your plan wrong improperly for the last five years and now the DOL and the IRS are up your ass and you got to do back penalty and fix it, I mean, it's going to be a disaster. [26:54] Chad: And we'll leave with this on the topic. It's relevant in all lines of business. There's a payroll company out there, Paylocity, great partner. Focuses on partnering with 401k providers to create that same type of integration, that 360 degree integration with the 401k platform through payroll. They sent out an email recently that said if you're competing against adp, if you're competing against paychecks, if you're competing against Zen Payroll, here are some selling points. Here are things you want to talk about. So for all those listening and watching in, if you have questions, if you want to talk about our experiences and competing against those providers and what are the best avenues for going in and showing the client value in comparison to what they're currently getting, reach out to Mark, myself or Justin for those SoCal folks now and we'll help guide you through some of those key talking points. [27:45] JD: Oh, that's good, that's good. Okay, we're moving on. Dude, this is gonna be fun. Because I thought about this the first time. I wish we had this picture here like last time. But we are gonna call Paul Carlson, the founder. [28:01] Chad: Is he awake? [28:02] JD: And it's on consultancy. It's like 6:30. [28:05] Chad: Is he awake? [28:06] JD: He's gonna watch this. [28:07] Chad: He's running around. [28:09] JD: He's on the golf course still. [28:11] Mark: It's. [28:12] JD: Let's be fair, some of these questions. And I have the questions here are pretty easy. But the guys T ball for this. The guy's retired, you know, so I threw in a couple of modern day questions at a modern day that, you know, I don't know if he keeps up on. So we'll see. And I would also say that I don't think he's a huge fan of the show. So if he seems a little upset or irate, you just have this. [28:41] Chad: I thought that was just his personality. [28:44] JD: So here we go. To the man, the myth, the legend. It's his cell phone number. [28:48] Mark: We're going after a cell phone. [28:50] Chad: And he is truly one of my favorite people in the world. [28:54] JD: Yeah, we call him Obi Wan around here. Guru the master. Let's see if we can stump him with three questions. [29:01] Mark: Who wants to take a bet he'll answer and say Domino's Pizza. [29:06] JD: I just want to see if this. He can he answer them quickly or will there be a story behind each of them? [29:11] Mark: It's going to take about 30 minutes. [29:13] JD: No, he can write some novel. [29:16] Chad: Emails got to be in between. [29:18] Mark: True. [29:20] JD: We got him. [29:21] Chad: He's on. [29:22] JD: Paul Carlson, the man, the myth, the legend. [29:26] Speaker A: Oh, wow. This sounds like those young turks at the office. [29:30] JD: This is the retireholics show, Pops, and we are doing the. What's it called again? [29:37] Mark: The Better call. [29:39] JD: Better call. Paul, we're gonna quiz you on three retirement plan questions and see if we can stump you. [29:47] Speaker A: All right, Well, I hope it doesn't take too long because I'm busy streaming some music from the new Apple service to my Apple watch and listening to it on my Bluetooth. [30:01] JD: Is he trying to impress us? Yeah, like, sorry, he's trying to interrupt your. [30:04] Chad: Oh, you are way more technology technologically savvy. [30:08] Speaker A: There we go. [30:09] Chad: Than any of us. [30:10] Mark: You're on the forefront of everything, always. [30:12] JD: All right, you ready for the first question? [30:16] Speaker A: Oh, you giving me some questions? All right. [30:18] JD: Three of them. Three of them. What year was the 401k first introduced? And whom I know is controversial? Maybe, but whom is typically considered the. The founder of 401K. What year, and who's the guy? [30:35] Speaker A: Well, the simple answer would be 1978. It was introduced as a section of the Code. [30:44] JD: That's correct. That's the answer. I'm looking [30:49] Speaker A: to implement it about 1980 for his own company called the Johnson Company. [30:55] Mark: Can you. Can you repeat that name, please? [30:59] Speaker A: Ted Bennett. [30:59] Mark: Here we go. [31:00] Chad: My goodness. That was the only one. [31:02] Speaker A: I thought he had once. And I posed William for pictures and. [31:07] JD: We don't want it. We don't need you to drop names. We don't need you to drop names and tell us about people you hung out with. We just need you to answer the questions. All right, one for one. Very good job. Number two. And I think this one's easy. But since you're kind of chilling in semi retirement, there's. I'm using this year's limit. So let's see what is. And I'm going to use fancy IRS code. See if your camera stay up on the. Ouch. I think you're going to get this one. [31:34] Chad: Yeah. [31:34] JD: What is the current 415 limit and the current 402G limit for 2015? [31:42] Speaker A: Well, 415 limit refers to what we call the annual additions. And so let's see. So this year, if you're under age 50, the limit would be 53,000. But if you're an old geezer who's 50 by the last day of 2015 and you're in a 401k, you could do another 6,000. Catch up. So the real limit would be 59,000. [32:09] JD: Ding, ding, ding. [32:10] Mark: And the 402g limit for 2015, let's see, that's 18,000. [32:18] Speaker A: And then you can do $6,000 of makeup. So that's 24,018 if you're over age 50. [32:24] JD: Very good. You're two for two. Last question. I wouldn't call this a trick question, but in what year was the salary deferral limit? Not 18,000, but 16,500. What year? [32:43] Speaker A: Well, that's kind of a trick question because the answer is what years? Not what year. [32:50] Chad: You're too good, Paul. [32:52] Speaker A: 2010 and 2011. [32:54] JD: Did you say nine? Ten? [32:55] Chad: He did. [32:57] JD: Okay. [32:59] Speaker A: Wow. [33:00] JD: All right, three for three. [33:01] Speaker A: Let me ask you guys a question. What was the limit in 1980 when Ted Bennett did the first plan? [33:12] JD: Can we edit this later? [33:14] Chad: 8,700. [33:17] Speaker A: About 25% of your compensation not to exceed $30,000. [33:23] Chad: Oh, for a deferral limit. [33:24] JD: Totally wrong answer. [33:27] Speaker A: Wow. [33:28] JD: Goes way more. That's good news. Be prepared for episode four, because we're gonna be coming at you a lot harder. [33:38] Speaker A: Okay. [33:38] Chad: All right. See you, Paul. [33:40] Mark: All right, see you, Paul. [33:42] JD: Thanks. [33:42] Speaker A: Glad we're done because I'M trying to make a big decision here. Do I play golf and then tennis tomorrow or do I play tennis and then golf? [33:50] JD: All right, that's funny because I thought he was actually going to be pissed. [33:56] Mark: Like, why are you calling me for [33:58] JD: this damn show instead? He was a very gracious. [34:03] Chad: Seriously, it amazes me every damn time how much he actually knows and retains over the years. [34:10] JD: I was gonna give him 09, 2010 or 2011. Like as long as he nailed one of those, I was gonna give it to him and he knew that it was all three of them. [34:19] Chad: So, I mean, I haven't been doing this. You've been doing this for a long time. You remember stuff from 10 years ago? No, I'm not even sure what I [34:27] Mark: had for breakfast this morning, to be honest. [34:30] JD: All right, so let's wrap it up. [34:32] Speaker A: True. [34:33] JD: Let's wrap it up. Remember, we've gotten a little bit more legit. We're an Internet sensation. [34:40] Mark: By next episode. How many views do you think we have? [34:42] JD: Oh, I haven't even blasted this. After this episode's done ending, we're blast out to the NorCal. So I'm guessing by next episode we'll have 17,000. [34:51] Chad: No, let's. Let's bet. Let's bet we'll announce last. It'll be viral. High, low. I'll go first. I'm saying by the end of the next one, which has to be recorded in the next quarter. I'm gonna say 377. [35:04] JD: He is. [35:05] Chad: Yes. 377. [35:06] Mark: I'm a little bit lower and say 2:44. [35:10] JD: Is it right? Where is that? So I'm gonna say $1. Not that I have confidence in our show because I do. But I'll go with the price is right. $1 means I get everything below it. [35:22] Chad: You're getting everything below his 200. We're already at 100. And we're gonna double up. [35:27] JD: No, I don't know. I think we will. Don't forget. [35:31] Mark: Who are we betting? Smirnoffice. [35:34] Chad: Smirnoff Ice Retireholics. [35:37] JD: Retireholics.com youm can sign up to be notified for future episodes. Episode number four. Stay tuned. Will we finally stump Paul Carlson? We'll see. We'll come up with some harder questions. Will Mark Palmini lose the wheel of ice again? I don't know. I can't. It's probably not physically possible to lose that many in a row. And like I mentioned earlier, we have gotten some feedback from some, some viewers. They have some ideas for us and we're definitely going to incorporate those. And our goals going forward is to make sure we have good, valuable content. Yeah, we're having fun. Yes, this is our version of a boring webinar, but we also want to deliver valuable content to our advisors, to plan sponsors, to our strategic partners that are tuning in. I can't close the show without mentioning that we were going to have a interview with. With a DCIO defined contribution investment only suit and tie section. We were all stacked to have it until yesterday just before the show. And what do you think stopped it? Some compliance. [36:44] Mark: Of course. We don't have that problem. [36:45] JD: We're too. We're too rock and roll for Fortune 1000. They can't handle us. But I have some ideas whether that means we're going to blur out their face and change their voice or before. [36:56] Mark: You should actually do that like they do on that. But can I. Can I say a little toast before we end the show? Yeah. I know it's been over a month now, but Mr. Johansson, welcome their second child, little baby Dylan. Baby Dylan, congratulations to increasing your family to four. [37:13] JD: There we go. [37:15] Mark: I have no beer left, so. [37:17] JD: And that's a wrap. [37:19] Speaker A: Boom. [37:23] JD: All right, good. That was pretty much. How long was that, though? That's long. [37:29] Mark: So if you have highly compensated employees averaging 8%, 2% less than that in the non highly compensated. That's our best plan. That's our best plan.