Alliance Benefit Group has asked the Department of Labor to clarify certain aspects of the new fee and expense disclosure regulations slated to go into effect this summer. The independent full-service retirement plan provider pointed out that one of its main concerns was the provision of the disclosure regulation that requires advisors to provide fee and benchmarking information for each Designated Investment Alternative in a retirement plan.

According to this requirement, advisors would have to provide historical performance data, expense information, performance benchmarks, and a "sufficiently specific" URL containing pertinent information for every model portfolio in a plan. Generating this information would not only be onerous, but unfeasible for some model portfolios. For example, risk-based models, which allow investors to choose whether they want conservative, moderate, or aggressive asset allocations, often blend mutual funds together, making them extremely difficult to benchmark.

"We do not believe that the Department of Labor had any idea of the effective use many advisors and plan participants make of model portfolios in their plans," said John G. Hopkins, IV, executive director of Alliance Benefit Group. "We have asked that the DOL provide specific clarification on whether DIAs will cover investment education services, investment services that implement education services, asset allocation models, and managed account services."