You, as a plan sponsor, have "a duty to know" ¹ what your plan is paying, what you are being charged for services provided to your plan. In addition, under ERISA ² you must ensure those fees are reasonable considering the services provided. In my last column, I described a process we've developed and used that we call "90-10-10" that, in a short amount of time and for a very reasonable cost, can actively benchmark your plan and provider against a range of "excellent" providers. Some of you may prefer to do it for yourselves. Here's how to proceed:

First, begin by taking a good, hard look at problems you're having in your plan. What's the source of your pain? You need to understand the source of trouble since most of the providers you'll be talking to have a fixed, packaged product - a "bundle" - they will offer. You don't want to go through the work and just repeat your problems.

Once you've looked at problems, identify what you're happy with and what you'd like to have but don't. Once again, since you will be looking at a range of providers, all of whom have somewhat different ways of packaging themselves, you need keep focused on what's of real value to you.

Finally, ask yourself, what am I expecting to come out of this? You may think you are simply exercising due care and diligence, fulfilling your "duty to know," but are you ready, should you find that you're way out of line on pricing and your vendor won't budge, to make a move?

Our practice is to put a client's plan out for bid, or benchmarking, at least every three years. We do it "blind," meaning we don't disclose who they are and we do it behind the scenes, meaning the clients aren't really involved until we present our report. Naturally, we tell them we're benchmarking and give them an idea ahead of time what we think we'll find, what we're seeking to achieve. Usually, we're expecting to find the plan to be in pretty good shape or, perhaps, to gain leverage for negotiating with the current provider.

Since we disclose ALL compensation we receive or might receive, pushing a conversion to "refresh the commission" isn't possible. (If you are offered a "free" search and review by someone, get full disclosure of how they, ultimately, would be paid. There may be an agenda other than due diligence). We have no interest in change for change's sake but we do advise our clients to be prepared, in the event we find significant advantages, to go from survey to search. You must be open, however remote the possibility, to altering your plan arrangements if the economics become compelling.

Next: "Size Matters."