A former vice president of marketing for Fidelity Investments' bundled 401(k) program has introduced a new web site, Route401(k) (www.route401k.com), designed to help small retirement plan sponsors choose bundled 401(k) plans.
Stuart Hilger started the site in May, shortly after he opened his retirement consulting business, Hilger Associates, in the Boston suburb of Hopkinton, Mass.
By using the Internet site, plan sponsors can avoid the time-consuming request for proposal process. The process of finding a bundled 401(k) plan provider is whittled down from several months to one to two days by using his service, which employs a database that he has compiled, Hilger said.
Route401(k) also makes the process less expensive, Hilger said. His process has paired down what might cost thousands of dollars in traditional consulting fees to less than $1,000.
The annual cost of the Route401(k) web site is $495 and reports that compare vendors cost $95 per vendor. Those fees are likely to drop in the coming weeks, Hilger said.
The reports contain product and service information and fee estimates compiled from a database that Hilger has assembled from bundled plan vendors. Other services on the site include 401(k) news and investment information.
In return for the information they provide Route401(k), plan providers receive exposure in the 401(k) marketplace. The information they give Route401(k) is only shown to plan sponsors and is not shared with rival plan providers.
Route401(k) is not the first web-based defined contribution consultant.
