For employers and committee fiduciaries
Retirement plan oversight that meets your obligations and serves your employees.
401(k), 403(b), and defined-benefit plan oversight built around ERISA fiduciary standards, fee transparency, and employee outcomes — not vendor commissions or check-the-box compliance.
Why employers move their plan to Premier
If you’re a plan sponsor or committee member, you’ve probably worried…
- Your fund lineup includes high-fee options nobody can defensibly justify.
- Your recordkeeper changes their fee structure and you have to figure out what it actually costs.
- Your committee meetings happen quarterly but produce no documented decisions.
- Your employees aren’t enrolling, contributing enough, or making sensible investment choices.
ERISA fiduciary obligations are real. We help committees discharge them properly — and serve the participants in the process.
What's included
Everything one team handles for you.
3(21) or 3(38) fiduciary services
Co-fiduciary (3(21)) or full investment-discretion (3(38)) services per your committee’s preference and risk posture.
Investment policy & fund lineup oversight
A defensible IPS, annual lineup reviews, low-cost share-class enforcement, performance benchmarking against appropriate peer groups.
Fee transparency & benchmarking
Annual 408(b)(2) fee disclosure review, recordkeeper RFP support, share-class optimization — we make hidden plan costs visible.
Committee documentation & meeting prep
Pre-meeting decks, decision documentation, formal meeting minutes templates — the paper trail that proves fiduciary process was followed.
Participant education & communication
Group sessions, individual meetings, communications that meet employees where they actually are — without the marketing veneer.
Plan design consulting
Auto-enrollment, auto-escalation, safe-harbor structures, profit-sharing strategies — designed for outcomes, not vendor commissions.
Vendor coordination
We work alongside your recordkeeper, TPA, and ERISA attorney — not in competition with them. Cleaner handoffs, fewer dropped balls.
How we work
The Premier Method — applied to Retirement Plan Administration.
The same four steps every Premier client experiences. Adapted to the specific work of Retirement Plan Administration.
Listen
Full review of the current plan document, IPS, fund lineup, fee structure, vendor relationships, and committee minutes. We map what’s working, what isn’t, and what creates fiduciary exposure.
Plan
A written investment policy + plan-improvement roadmap. Every recommendation tied to ERISA fiduciary standards and a defensible rationale your committee and auditor can read.
Coordinate
We attend committee meetings, brief the recordkeeper and TPA on the new framework, and coordinate any vendor changes (RFPs, share-class moves, lineup changes).
Communicate
Quarterly committee meetings with pre-meeting decks and formal minutes. Annual fee benchmarking. Real-time response when regulations or your business situation shifts the picture.
What it looks like in practice
Three engagements. Three different starting points.
Mid-size 401(k) fee cleanup
$45M plan with 8 hidden revenue-sharing layers
A 220-employee professional services firm with a $45M 401(k). The committee was diligent but the plan’s actual fee load (when revenue sharing was unwound) was nearly triple what the committee believed they were paying.
Ran a recordkeeper RFP. Moved to a clean-fee structure with no revenue sharing. Converted the lineup to institutional share classes. Drafted updated IPS and committee charter.
Annual all-in fees reduced by roughly 0.55% of plan assets — ~$248K/year in participant savings, plus a fee structure that’s defensible to an auditor.
Nonprofit 403(b) consolidation
Five vendors, five document sets, one plan year
A regional nonprofit with a 403(b) split across five different vendors (historically) with five different document sets, fee structures, and lineup options. Compliance burden was crushing and outcomes for participants were uneven.
Consolidated to a single vendor with a unified plan document. Migrated assets in tranches with no participant disruption. Rebuilt the IPS and committee framework from scratch.
A single-vendor 403(b) with clean fees, a unified lineup, and an investment committee that meets quarterly with proper documentation. Audit prep time dropped by roughly 70%.
Defined-benefit plan governance reset
A frozen DB plan with no formal oversight
A manufacturer with a frozen defined-benefit plan, $30M in assets, no formal investment committee structure, and an actuary doing valuation work but nobody owning the investment side. Fiduciary risk was substantial.
Established a formal investment committee. Wrote the IPS. Rebuilt the asset allocation around the plan’s frozen liability profile. Coordinated with the actuary and PBGC reporting cycle.
A properly governed DB plan with documented fiduciary process, an allocation matched to the liability profile, and the documented paper trail that protects committee members personally.
How we compare
Premier vs. the alternatives.
| Premier | Robo-advisor | Big-4 brokerage | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Compensation | Fee-only, AUM-based, no commissions | Low flat % (~0.25%), algorithmic | Mix: commissions + product revenue + advisory fee |
| Relationship | Same advisor & team for decades (20-yr avg tenure) | No human advisor (or paid-tier call center) | Assigned advisor; often reassigned every 18–24 months |
| Scope of work | Investment + tax + estate + business coordinated together | Investment allocation only | Investment-led; tax/estate often siloed or via product cross-sell |
| Conflicts | None — fiduciary, fee-only, no proprietary funds | Low — limited to their fund universe | Yes — proprietary products + commission-eligible securities |
Working together
How we charge, and who this is for.
How we charge
Fee-only. AUM-based. No commissions.
Transparent percentage tied to your assets under management. No commissions, no proprietary products, no soft-dollar arrangements. Discussed openly in your initial conversation and disclosed in writing in your engagement letter and our Form ADV.
Who this is for
Typically $1M+ in investable assets.
Most clients arrive with $1M or more under management. Some start smaller with a clear path — a business sale, an inheritance, a vesting event. If we’re not the right fit, we’ll tell you straight — and point you toward who is.
Common questions
Questions we get from prospective clients.
What size of plan do you work with?
Most engagements involve plans with $5M+ in assets and 50+ participants. We’ve worked with smaller plans where the situation warranted it (a fiduciary concern, a complex plan design, a key transition). We’re honest about fit — if the plan is too small to be cost-effectively served by what we do, we’ll tell you and point you toward better-suited options.
Are you a 3(21) or 3(38) fiduciary?
Both, depending on what your committee wants. As 3(21) co-fiduciary we recommend and the committee approves; as 3(38) we hold investment discretion subject to your IPS. Most mid-size plans choose 3(21) initially and move to 3(38) once the relationship is established and committee bandwidth becomes an issue.
What happens if my advisor leaves the firm?
Why fee-only? What's wrong with commissions?
Commissions create a conflict of interest that even the most ethical advisor can't fully neutralize: if you're paid more for selling Product A than Product B, you'll naturally see more reasons to recommend Product A. We chose to remove the conflict structurally rather than try to manage it with good intentions. Fee-only means our compensation moves only when your assets do.
Do you work with my existing CPA and attorney?
Always. Your existing CPA and estate attorney know your history. We’re not in the business of replacing those relationships. What we DO is the coordination most firms skip — making sure your investment, tax, and estate decisions actually align with each other instead of contradicting each other in ways nobody notices until it costs you.
Becoming a client
A 30-minute plan-oversight conversation, no pitch.
Bring your most recent 5500, your IPS, and your fee disclosure. We’ll spend 30 minutes telling you straight where the plan looks aligned, where it looks exposed, and what the highest-impact next move would be. No product pitch. No follow-up cadence unless you ask for one.
Most chosen
Schedule a conversation
30 minutes. By phone or video. No prep needed.
Lower commitment
Request the wealth guide
A 24-page PDF on what "fiduciary" actually means — and how to evaluate one.
Direct line
Call us directly
707.443.2741 · 8 AM – 5 PM PT. A human answers, not a menu.
No pitch. No pressure. If we're not the right fit, we'll tell you who is.