Admin316 Insights
Our point of view. What we see across the plans we administer, where the industry’s incentives are misaligned, and the positions we are willing to put our name on.
The Daily 401(k) Intelligence feed reports what happened. This section is where we say what we think it means. These are Admin316 positions — argued, not neutral.
“Fiduciary support” is not fiduciary responsibility
A large share of the market sells fiduciary comfort: checklists, warranties, monitoring dashboards, a 3(21) recommendation letter. All useful. None of it moves discretion. If the employer still signs the 5500, still approves the distribution, still decides the lineup, then the employer is still the fiduciary who gets named in the complaint. Read the agreement for the words “accepts appointment as” and a section number. Everything else is marketing.
The cheapest plan is not the prudent plan
Fee litigation has trained sponsors to chase basis points, but ERISA asks whether fees are reasonable for the services received. We have seen plans cut 15 bps and lose the only party who was checking eligibility — and then pay far more correcting three years of missed enrollments. Price the services first, then negotiate the price.
Late deposits are a governance failure, not a payroll one
Nearly every late-deposit case we review traces to the same root cause: no single named owner of the remittance timeline, and no exception report when a payroll cycle is missed. It is fixable in an afternoon and it is the single most visible item on your Form 5500.
Small plans carry large-plan risk with none of the infrastructure
A 40-employee plan faces the same notice requirements, the same testing, the same document rules and the same DOL authority as a 40,000-employee plan — usually with one HR generalist covering it part-time. That gap, not investment selection, is where the exposure lives.
Cybersecurity is now a fiduciary duty in practice
Once DOL published guidance for plan sponsors, “we assumed the recordkeeper handled it” stopped being a defensible answer. Ask for controls documentation, put it in the fiduciary file, and revisit it annually — the same way you treat fees.
Documentation beats intention every time
Courts evaluate process. The sponsors who come through examinations and litigation well are rarely the ones who made the smartest decisions; they are the ones who can show what they reviewed, when, and why they concluded what they concluded.
What we take responsibility for
Admin316 provides 402(a) named fiduciary and 3(16) plan administration services. That means we are named in your plan document, we accept the appointment in writing, and we take on the operational and administrative fiduciary work — notices, filings, eligibility, distributions, the calendar — rather than advising you on how to do it yourself. Your remaining duty is to prudently select and monitor us, which is exactly the duty ERISA never lets any sponsor delegate away.
We don’t just advise the plan. We take responsibility for it.
Related reading
Daily 401(k) Intelligence
Our review of ERISA litigation, DOL enforcement, IRS guidance and industry developments — with what each one means for plan sponsors.
Fiduciary Education
The roles, the duties, and where sponsors most often get into trouble.
Plan Sponsor Resources
Compliance calendar, annual fiduciary file checklist and provider questions.
Want a straight answer about your plan?
No pitch deck first. Send your Form 5500 and provider agreements and we will tell you what we would change, what it would cost, and what we would take responsibility for.
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