There are times to avoid the maddening crowds (e.g. lemming heading for a cliff, Black Friday and anything related to Justin Bieber), and there are times to benefit from the wisdom of crowdsourcing (e.g. finding a funny YouTube video, picking Blu-Ray and avoiding Betamax). When it comes to reviewing what other professionals in your industry are reading, place this under the second category. Getting a feel for the pulse of the marketplace gives you a sense of past concerns, current talking points and future solutions.

In that spirit, we regular analyze our readers’ habits to learn what has interested them most in the last 12 months. What we discovered from our 2012 data reveals problems many might have predicted and suggests avenues smarter folks might be concentrating on in 2013. 

#4) “401k Plan Sponsors and the Risk of Fiduciary Liability,” (February 21, 2012) – One of the biggest questions asked among financial professionals and plan sponsors themselves is, “What’s the downside of non-compliance for plan sponsors?” This article answers that question in two ways. First, it highlights (and links to) several stories and articles detailing penalties and damages incurred by plan sponsors for non-compliance. Second, the article contains interviews with several leading ERISA attorneys and on the true nature of the plan sponsor’s fiduciary liability.

#3) “The 4 Critical Elements of a Successful 401k Plan Education Program,” (February 28, 2012) – The year 2012 saw a dramatic shift away from focusing on investments to one of focusing on saving. Indeed, a research paper issued in the summer suggested the difference in returns between the average 401(k) asset allocation and the “optimum” asset allocation is made up simply by working four more months. That said, the study concluded savings was more important than investing. This article, which came out five months before that paper was released, addresses this need by focusing on education. Education is much easier to track than investing, so it makes sense for 401(k) plan sponsors to concentrate on it.  

#2) “408(b)(2) Compliance and the Service Provider List,” (March 6, 2012) – By far the biggest story of the year was the DOL’s new fee disclosure rule, which became official as of July 1, 2012. The rule had a major impact on 401(k) plan sponsor compliance, as the plan sponsor would now be held liable for any service provider who failed to comply with the rule. Ah, but who, exactly, qualifies as a service provider? That question is answered in this article.

#1) “New 408(b)(2) ‘Guide’: Not Necessarily What 401k Plan Sponsors Hoped For,” (May 8, 2012) – Heading into the final implementation of the DOL’s new fee disclosure rule, the industry waited patiently waited for the DOL’s promised template. Like Godot, the template never came. It turns out, industry guru Fred Reish’s comments in the article did a fairly good job of predicting the implications of the lack of a template. With too much room to maneuver, many of the most suspect service providers elected to not only disclosure fees, but to do so in a core dump that rivals the best of “Where’s Waldo?”, except in this case, it was “Where’s the Fees?” and many folks just plain ignored the data.