Our Blog - Surety Matters

As it becomes harder and harder to pay for healthcare, more employers are viewing Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) as part of a “holistic retirement savings” strategy for employees.   Widespread Challenges It’s not hard to…
Read Moreabout Healthcare Savings and Retirement Plans?

Though not always true in life, socking away more money for retirement is very important for most participants in employee sponsored retirement plans, so it comes as good news that the annual contribution limits for…
Read Moreabout More Is Better

  When seeking to maximize the benefits participants reap from a 401k, it’s easy enough for plan sponsors to identify positive-sounding marketplace innovations. Typically, what’s more difficult is making decisions and implementing changes, given the…
Read Moreabout Innovation and the 401k?

  Ideally, careful estate planning results in a valid will, and likely a trust too, as well as communication of intentions and designation of a fiduciary, such as an executor or trustee, to carry out…
Read Moreabout Timing’s Everything: Probate Disputes

One way or another, someone has to close out our affairs when we die, and this person is a fiduciary, with legal obligations to carry out duties in the best interest of the estate and…
Read Moreabout Professional Fiduciary?

  Small retirement accounts have been a big problem for a long time, as they tend to become forgotten and contribute to challenges related to missing participants, cash leakage, and, of course, sub-optimal participant outcomes….
Read Moreabout Help for Small Balance Accounts

  Following an investigation by its Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA), the Department of Labor won a settlement for the participants of an employer sponsored retirement plan, arguing that fiduciary breaches, including failure to diversify…
Read Moreabout Failure To Diversify: ERISA Violation

  Although it’s best for everyone to have an estate plan–and avoid dying “intestate”–it’s especially important for unmarried partners not to leave the distribution of assets for the law to manage. That’s because state intestacy…
Read Moreabout Unmarried Partners: Avoid Intestacy

  Most families manage to avoid the headaches and heartaches of probate disputes through careful estate planning. Absent that, diligent adherence to probate protocols, including abiding by the laws of intestacy to distribute assets can…
Read Moreabout Probate Heartache: Valid Marriage?