10 Steps to Ensure You'll Be in Fiduciary Hot Water There are a few proven ways to make sure you'll end up in fiduciary hot water ... follow these steps and you're sure to find an auditor at your door. Source: Benefit Plans Plus

When will your 401(k) look better? Source: Chicago Tribune

3 Ways Cash Leaks Out of Your 401(k) While many Americans have valid reasons for raiding their 401(k) during their working years, these early withdrawals can have dire consequences in retirement Source: US News & World Report

PSCA Releases 52nd Annual Survey of Profit Sharing and 401(k) Plans New Survey Shows Plan Sponsors and Participants Maintained Their Commitment to 401(k) Plans

Nearly Half of Employers Now Auto-Enroll Employees in 401k Plans In a trend that is likely to continue, nearly half of U.S. companies are automatically enrolling workers into 401k plans to encourage them to save for retirement, according to a survey by Watson Wyatt. Source: 401khelpcenter.com

GAO Suggests Change to 401k Hardship Withdrawal Rule To enable employees to replenish their 401k plan account balances more quickly after they take hardship withdrawals, Congress should consider changing current law that bars plan participants from making new contributions until six months after a hardship withdrawal, the Government Accountability Office suggests in a report. Source: Businessinsurance.com

Are Participants Ready for Annuities? The market's recent plunge likely frightened more Americans into a willingness to consider putting at least some of their 401k assets in a retirement-income product at retirement. Now, Congress may give them a nudge to go ahead with it. Source: Plansponsor.com

11% of Employers Suspend 401k Plan Match More than one in 10 employers have suspended their matching contributions to their 401k plans, and more are considering doing the same, according to a survey released Wednesday. Source: Businessinsurance.com

AUDIO: Preaching a Winning 401k Formula at Verizon Wireless In this podcast, Jonathan Hayes, associate director of retirement benefits at Verizon Wireless and EBN's 2009 Benny winner for Benefits Leadership in Retirement Planning, talks about his winning ways for securing workers' retirement readiness. Source: Employee Benefit News

Financial Crisis Reveals U.S. Retirement-System's Holes With Painful Clarity The destructive effects of the financial crisis may be waning, but your retirement account won't soon forget. Savers lost 40% or more in the downturn -- a collective $2.1 trillion disappeared from 401k and IRA assets in 2008 alone -- and while the recent stock-market recovery may feel good, it's done little to stem a mounting crisis in the retirement system in the United States. Source: Marketwatch.com

This Could Be the Biggest 401k Mistake You'll Ever Make People may or may not learn from their own 401k mistakes, but apparently, the idea that people learn from other folks' mistakes is a myth. Source: MSN.com

Risk Management: Listen to Your Employees Most articles written by lawyers cover technical legal subjects. They educate the reader on the law, but typically give little in the way of guidance about what the client should do . . . or not do. This article goes beyond a discussion of the law and even beyond advice about how to comply with the law. Instead, it discusses practical techniques for avoiding problems. Source: Reish & Reicher

Where Investment Committees Spend Their Time Investment committees often spend too much time on things they can't control and too little time on things they can. Use this tool to see if there are opportunities for your committee to use time more wisely. Source: Vanguard

Investment Committee Decision-Maker Study How do institutional investment committees make their decisions? How do they manage conflict and dissent? To learn more about the dynamics, Vanguard surveyed committee members and analyzed more than 100 responses. This paper summarizes the results. Source: Vanguard

Reenrollment and Target-Date Funds: A Case Study in Portfolio Reconstruction A new research paper from Vanguard Center for Retirement Research examines participant behavior and portfolios after a large defined contribution plan reenrolled participants into target-date funds. The study found that one year after the event, 87% of participants maintained a full or partial position in the target-date approach and that reenrollment had boosted plan diversification substantially. Source: Vanguard

Managing the Road to Retirement This is a national survey of U.S. business employers and workers regarding their attitudes toward retirement. The overall goals for the study are to illuminate emerging trends, promote awareness, and help educate the public. Source: Transamerica

Recent Defined Contribution Plan Guidance This article highlights recent guidance regarding (1) automatic enrollment features in 401k plans, (2) the contribution of unused paid time off to tax-qualified defined contribution plans as either employer contributions or employee salary deferral contributions, and (3) the permissibility of distributing a mutual fund's "Summary Prospectus" to participants to satisfy one of the requirements for limited fiduciary protection under section 404(c). Source: Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP

IRS Illustrates Application of Escalator Provision in 401k Automatic Contribution Arrangements The IRS has issued guidance in Rev. Rul. 2009-30 clarifying the use of escalator provisions in 401k plan automatic contribution arrangements that allow for an adjustment in the amount of an employee's default contributions based on increases in pay. Source: CCH

Sample Plan Amendments for Adding 401k Automatic Contribution Features The IRS has issued two sample plan amendments in IRS Notice 2009-65 that will enable employers to add automatic contribution features to their 401k plans. Sample Amendment One may be used to add an automatic contribution arrangement to a 401k plan. Sample Amendment Two may be used to add an eligible automatic contribution arrangement (authorizing withdrawals of elective deferrals) to a 401k plan. Source: CCH