While there’s no going back — and perhaps no good reason to even want to — there is a price to be paid for participant disclosure, according to research by EBRI. Of the 7% of participants who noticed new fee information and took action, the most common responses were to:
• Move money out of expensive investments (32%)
• Withdraw money from the plan (23%)
• Increase contributions to less expensive options (8%)
• Start contributing less to the plan (7%)
Putting too much emphasis on fees when selecting investments may not be the best strategy, nor is withdrawing money from the plan. But we should also refrain make overreaching judgments about fee disclosure after only one year.
