In my post yesteday announcing my new relationship with a company that specializes in helping you rollover your retirement accounts into a personal account, here is more information…
Yesterday I had a question/comment to my post from David Grubman:
But Jason…. you can roll over your old retirement savings plans (401k or 457 or 403….) to any qualified IRA. Not sure I get the unique value proposition of these guys.. you can do the same with Vanguard or Fidelity.
Good question… I’ll let the CEO (Brandon Small) answer it:
Absolutely. You can rollover to anything – from anything. But neither Vanguard or Fidelity do the tracking. And the paperwork leads many to not do their rollover.
I’m not saying we invented the wheel. But we are focusing our efforts on a specific niche. It’s like your site, there are other “similar” sites, but you do it differently – choosing to focus on topics you think are important.
I’ve found Brandon’s service to be exactly what I needed. When I went through this process I had a number of questions to ask, and he had the time and knowledge I was looking for. I didn’t want to be sold a complementary service… it was very straightforward, but he respected my “unique situation.” I like service providers that provide… old fashioned service. I can vouch for Brandon and his company.
Here are a few more “details” that came up:
401k Accounts only??
No, that is my myopic name for “retirement savings account”… it applies to various plans, which you can see on their website. When in doubt just fill out the form and they’ll get back to you to discuss it.
What is the cost to do a rollover?
On the transfer (rollover) we are charging nothing nor does the client incur any cost.
How does Rollover Express make money (I get this question all the time):
The fee is between .5 % and 1.5 %, charged quarterly – so 1/4 of that will be deducted as a fee (from your principle (total assets)) every 3 months.
Most advisors that provide fee-only have a minimum of $150k to $200k. We have no minimum – this is a function of our lower costs and competitive edge. This is the preferred fee structure for investors.
What is your motivation for serving me, as a client?
We charge a flat annual fee for managing assets, .5-1.5%. Commission advisors charge 4-6% upon investment. Because of this compensation structure we are naturally service centered, not sales centered. Fee-only is also the direction most advisors are going.
Discount brokerages, like ETrade and TDAmeritrade and Scott Trade, charge for every transaction – like $10 for a stock trade or other, but you get no investment service/advice.
I asked my LinkedIn network (using the new Answers feature) and got some outstanding replies and information – here’s one that I think it really noteworthy, from Frank Galea, CFA, who is a Mutual Funds Compliance Manager:
The only hitch is that you would not want to commingle rollover funds with additional personal contributions because the latter will not be eligible for rolling into a future employer plan and can lead to accounting headaches to figure out ratio of eligible vs. non-eligible funds.
One of the answers I got on LinkedIn was from David Craker in Australia – it kind of suprised me:
Jason, this is a global forum, please remember this… A 401k is nothing that anyone else is interested in other than the USA… We do not have these issues and constraints by the US Government rulings in Australia unless we are directly US citizens that need comply with this for the USA… Here we are ruled by Australian Taxation Office, possibly the Corporations Act and Australian Securities and Investment Commission if it involves investments.
Why did this surprise me? The point of this entire topic is managing your own career, which includes planning for and managing retirement. I don’t care where you live, or what great company that you work for that has a great retirement plan (can you say E-N-R-O-N??) – I don’t even pretend to know the options in other countries – but my message is FIGURE SOMETHING OUT. Don’t leave this to an employer, or a government. You can if you want, but I’m a little skeptical after my experience last year of getting booted out the door. I’m all about figuring out what YOUR plan is for YOU.
Is this interesting? Do you have a plan? If you are in the US (thanks for the reminder David) then go fill out the form and get the ball … er, rolling 😉