Plan Conversion Process – Vestwell Help Center
Transitioning your retirement plan to the Vestwell Platform requires carefully coordinating potentially significant volumes of records, compliance with applicable regulations, and cooperation from your prior provider. Therefore, we want to be sure you understand how our plan conversion process works and that our ability to smoothly onboard your plan to the Vestwell Platform is contingent upon certain activities.
We need copies of all Plan documents, including any amendments. The IRS requires plans to have signed plan documents, and reviewing them will help us determine whether your Plan’s features are compatible with our platform or whether alternative features may be a better fit for your workforce. In addition, we may be able to identify any compliance issues that need to be corrected before your Plan is transitioned to our platform. In the event, any issues arise that we feel requires corrective action, we will adjust the timeline to onboard your plan.
The conversion timeline may need to be extended, or you may need to undertake additional administrative responsibilities for Plans with unusual workforce demographics, operations, payroll practices, or other administrative features. Those additional responsibilities will be explained during the onboarding process.
A successful conversion to our platform requires cooperation from your prior provider. We cannot onboard your plan until we receive their records so that we can confirm that your provider has transferred all assets, that each participant account clearly identifies the money source (e.g., employee deferrals which are always vested and employer contributions that may vest over time), and that all terminated participants with balances also have confirmed accounting for their accounts. We may need to adjust any conversion timeline if we encounter delays or receive incomplete records or have errors. We have also found that you may need to download records from your provider and send them to us. Here are a few common causes of incomplete records that we may need your help to resolve:
- Participants on the conversion records but not provided on the initial census from you.
- Cash balances received in the wire from the previous provider do not match the balances on the reports.
- Missing money source information
Your Plan may require a blackout period in order to facilitate a smooth transition to our platform. Therefore, the timeline for onboarding may be extended to accommodate a blackout period. Vestwell will prepare and deliver any appropriate blackout notices to the email address or other contact information provided to us. We will strive to get through the blackout period as quickly as possible, but we have little control over the timing.
The Vestwell Platform and service offering are not expected to accommodate complete feature parity and may operate differently than your prior provider’s platform and services. As a result, we may need to amend features of your Plan in order to convert it to our platform.
Depending on the complexity and nature of the investment options in your current Plan, we may need to liquidate all participant accounts and reinvest them in the investment options your Plan’s investment fiduciary has selected. We will execute those transactions as quickly as possible, typically within 3-4 business days of receiving Plan assets and conversion reporting from your previous provider without errors or omissions. As explained in your agreement with us, we do not have any control over and are not responsible for market fluctuations that may occur during the liquidation and reinvestment process.