by Kurt Laubinger | May 4, 2015 | Smart Investing
Believe it or not, this question is at the heart of a hotly debated new rule proposed by the Department of Labor (DOL) surrounding the investment alternatives and advice provided to retirement plan sponsors and participants. Simply put, many brokers who provide this advice can offer a number of alternatives to ERISA based plans and their participants. As long as the recommendation can be deemed a “suitable” one based on the investor’s objectives, the broker is free to recommend those that make him/her the most money instead of what is in the best interest of the client. It is easy to make the connection that the more money paid to the broker for selling an investment, generally, the worse the outcome for the investor. This dynamic represents an inherent conflict of interest. The broker is faced with the choice of generating enough commission to feed his family or provide the best advice to the client. Now, let’s add another dynamic. Assume that the company employing the broker demands a certain level of commission income from its representatives in exchange for their continued employment and those with the highest levels of commission will be rewarded by the company with higher pay and other perks. Now, the broker is faced with a slightly different choice, one of generating enough commission income to feed his family and buy that new Ferrari or lose his job. Since the commissioned based approach generally used by most providers of retirement plan services is one that is driven by this conflict of interest, the DOL proposed a new rule designed to elicit better advice for the...
