PLANADVISER - March/April 2018 - 29

everyone in the industry agreed with
our ideas, the release of that book was
the launching pad for our retirement
practice because it helped us differentiate
our firm and gave us the opportunity
to speak at a lot of conferences
and do workshops, " he says.
Put into practice, that philosophy
means Greenspring stresses the
importance of how plan sponsors
manage their fiduciary responsibilities
and to help them, the team has developed
a number of proprietary tools;
it also means implementing effective
plan design, for which the team leverages
behavioral finance and automatic
plan features.
Greenspring developed proprietary
consulting tools and methodologies
that it uses with clients to help make
managing their fiduciary process
simpler, easier and more effective: a
strategic plan management tool, (k)
larity Quotient®; a target-date fund
(TDF) analysis methodology, Target
Date (k)larity®; a web-based fee benchmarking
app, FeeMetri(k)s™; and an
online fiduciary training curriculum,
Fiduciary U™.
" We believe this culture of innovation
enables us to identify and recognize
trends and best practices, well
before most of the industry, and help
our clients embrace [them as well],
thereby minimizing risk and driving
better outcomes, " Itzoe says.
Because Greenspring is a fee-only
registered investment adviser (RIA),
Itzoe says, his clients have been at
the forefront of fee best practices for
over a decade, as early adopters of
zero revenue-sharing funds, as well as
primarily fixed advisory and recordkeeping
fees. " Fee disclosure in 2012
literally had no impact on our existing
clients because we had been implementing
fee transparency and essentially
fee levelization since 2006, " he
explains.
Like many other retirement plan
specialist firms, Greenspring advisers
try to satisfy behavioral economist
Shlomo Benartzi's 90-10-90 rule-i.e.,
90% participation rate, 10% deferral
rate, and 90% of participants in a properly
managed asset allocation-as well
as leverage automatic plan features
his advisers have also been effectively
promoting TDF re-enrollments when
there is no recordkeeper change,
which has led to some " pretty dramatic
results with a number of clients that
have embraced this approach. "
The Greenspring team now has five
advisers-four lead advisers and one
dedicated participant adviser, Molly
Burton, who is a Certified Financial
Planner (CFP)-plus two relationship
managers, Lauren Gwinn and Reiley
Crosby. Team members are opinionated
and passionate, says Itzoe, and
that is what he expects. " We strive
to provide strong leadership for our
clients, and we will challenge them
when necessary and will advocate for
their employees about what we think is
best for them, as well as the company.
We promise to do this respectfully and
collaboratively and fully support the
committee's decision once we come to
consensus. "
The lead advisers both sell plans
and service clients, managing the
need to build relationships, prospect,
we are not willing to sign on as a fiduciary
to a plan that's unwilling to do
what we believe is right, regardless of
the fee. "
Enhancing and innovating in the
area of the participant experience
is the next frontier for Greenspring.
Burton, the newest team member,
concentrates on delivering an unparalleled
participant engagement experience.
" We have heavily invested in,
and equipped her with,
leading-edge
technology to engage participants,
along with a pre-retirement financial
planning curriculum. The focus is on
one-on-one engagement. "
This approach has received great
feedback from clients and been wellreceived
by participants, " Itzoe says.
He predicts that, over the next five
years, Greenspring will have a team
of participant advisers driving one-onone
engagement. " We are really excited
about the possibilities that exist here,
and the interest and excitement from
clients and prospects has been significant, "
he says. -Alison Cooke Mintzer
where they can, to help them do so.
Roughly 65% of the team's clients
utilize automatic enrollment, with 55%
of them defaulting at either 5% or 6%.
" Over the past several years, we
have really amped up the focus on
automatic plan design and aggressive
implementation-[in particular,]
a 6% default rate, 1% escalation, 15%
cap, retroactive implementation and
annual sweeps of eligible, nonparticipating
employees and 'under-savers,'
which we define as anyone saving
under the default, " Itzoe says.
In addition, Itzoe notes, while the
team almost always conducts a TDF
conversion when making a recordkeeper
change, over the past 18 months
and bring new clients onboard. When
doing the latter, Greenspring looks for
plan sponsors that are " open-minded
and willing to discuss and/or debate
our ideas, " Itzoe says " As long as they
do that, based on our experience, we
find clients will embrace our approach,
over time. "
As for plan sponsors that fail to buy
into the Greenspring philosophy and
approach? They usually hire someone
else, Itzoe says, and he is just fine with
that, as Greenspring is not going to just
be an " order taker, " he notes.
" Frankly, we aren't looking for
clients that don't align with us, " he
says. " Life is too short to work with
[people who] are going to fight us, and
" Over the past several years, we
have really amped up the focus on
automatic plan design and aggressive
implementation-[in particular,] a 6%
default rate, 1% escalation, 15% cap, ... "
planadviser.com march-april 2018 | 29
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PLANADVISER - March/April 2018

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