I am physician/SBO. We currently have our 401k through Principal, which my eldest partners chose 15+ years ago. Anybody have any opinions on Principal in general?
For me, the biggest issues are 1) The ER and 2) The perceived lack of transparency.
The average ER in our plan is around 0.9. When I called Principal to find out how much we were paying in ER (or even me individually) I was told they could not give me that information, and those fees are automatically subtracted from my value of each fund owned. So, there is never any debit from my account that I can see. All I can see, are plan administrative fees that are "my share." Is this common in other 401k plans?
We are considering switching to Vanguard, but are having trouble doing a head to head comparison because of the lack of transparency. Looking it from a personal standpoint based on the information Vanguard sent me, I would stand to reduce my ER from 0.9 to 0.06 or 0.08, so it would save me several thousand dollars a year. However, I have the burden of proof to my partners (mostly eldest as his wife is the practice administrator and handles the 401k stuff) that as a company, we would also come out ahead.
For me, the biggest issues are 1) The ER and 2) The perceived lack of transparency.
The average ER in our plan is around 0.9. When I called Principal to find out how much we were paying in ER (or even me individually) I was told they could not give me that information, and those fees are automatically subtracted from my value of each fund owned. So, there is never any debit from my account that I can see. All I can see, are plan administrative fees that are "my share." Is this common in other 401k plans?
We are considering switching to Vanguard, but are having trouble doing a head to head comparison because of the lack of transparency. Looking it from a personal standpoint based on the information Vanguard sent me, I would stand to reduce my ER from 0.9 to 0.06 or 0.08, so it would save me several thousand dollars a year. However, I have the burden of proof to my partners (mostly eldest as his wife is the practice administrator and handles the 401k stuff) that as a company, we would also come out ahead.
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