John Hancock Retirement is launching a service product designed to give plan sponsors additional administrative and fiduciary support for 401k plans. According to the announcement, its Signature Fiduciary Connect will allow employers to outsource plan administration and fiduciary risk through the Boston-based life-insurance company’s partnership with a variety of third-party administrators and 3(38) providers.
The service will be administered through John Hancock, which is the retirement arm of Manulife Investment Management. It’s available to plan sponsors, third-party administrators, and retirement plan advisors and features tools that assist with plan administration, investment selection and monitoring–as well as designing workplace 401k plans. The fiduciary component is managed through third-party administrators including TAG Resources, AMP, Paylocity, Wilshire and Raymond James, with additional fiduciary partners coming online in the near months.
With the release of Signature Fiduciary Connect, employers are gaining access to even more tools to help reduce administrative burden, mitigate risk and lessen concerns around compliance that can bring legal woes. John Hancock’s fiduciary service is looking to free up human resources and benefits staff by providing ERISA experts for plan design and compliance, utilizing outside investment expertise to select investment options, and maintaining a plan sponsor website and generating reporting.
Jack Barry, the company’s Vice President, Product Development, Strategy, and Transformation, says they hope the new product will alleviate some of the hurdles that exist for employers who want to offer a workplace retirement plan but may not have the in-house expertise or the resources to build and run it.
“We believe that retirement plans should work for both plan sponsors and plan participants,” added Gary Tankersley, John Hancock’s Head of Sales and Distribution. “Through our external partnerships, we are confident that implementing and servicing a retirement plan can be an easy and seamless exercise.”
John Hancock services over 52,000 retirement plans with approximately 3.1 million participants and over $220 billion in AUMA.
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