{"id":517170,"date":"2026-06-29T20:47:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-29T20:47:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/517170\/"},"modified":"2026-06-29T20:47:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T20:47:08","slug":"regulatory-developments-paving-the-path-for-retirement-income","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/517170\/","title":{"rendered":"Regulatory Developments Paving the Path for Retirement Income"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Congress included an annuity selection safe harbor in the SECURE Act, it intended to pave the way for plan fiduciaries to include retirement income solutions in defined contribution plans. The runway to mass availability of those solutions has been longer than some would like; the supply of solutions has certainly lagged behind their increasing need.<\/p>\n

However, after a few years of accelerating product development and launches, a number of recent developments are paving a path that will make it easier\u2014and more productive\u2014for advisors to explore and implement available solutions.<\/p>\n

SECURE Act Reminder<\/p>\n

Any retirement income developments should be viewed against the backdrop of the SECURE Act\u2019s safe harbor, which provides that fiduciaries will be deemed to have satisfied their duty of prudence with respect to their selection of an insurer for a guaranteed income contract. The safe harbor sets a list of specific\u2014and relatively easy to satisfy\u2014requirements. It also includes language confirming that the safe harbor does not require a fiduciary to choose the lowest-cost option and instead permits consideration of the contract\u2019s value. Even without the additional developments discussed below, any retirement plan advisory firm should start with\u2014and find comfort in\u2014the SECURE Act safe harbor.<\/p>\n

Related:Why Convergence of Wealth and Retirement Is Heating Up Now<\/a><\/p>\n

Executive Order<\/p>\n

In August 2025, President Donald Trump issued his \u201cDemocratizing Access to Alternative Assets for 401(k) Investors\u201d executive order<\/a>. The order broadly defined alternative assets to include a number of asset categories, including \u201clifetime income investment strategies.\u201d It instructed the Department of Labor to issue guidance\u2014including a potential safe harbor\u2014that would confirm fiduciaries\u2019 responsibilities when deciding whether to make available to plan participants an asset allocation fund that includes alternative assets.<\/p>\n

DOL Advisory Opinion<\/p>\n

In September 2025, the DOL issued an advisory opinion<\/a> concluding that a particular lifetime income solution program would be eligible for qualified default investment alternative treatment. The DOL emphasized that the QDIA regulation\u2019s preamble included language confirming its intent that QDIAs include products and portfolios offered through variable annuity and similar contracts, as well as through common and collective trust funds or other pooled investment funds. It also referenced and applied the SECURE Act safe harbor.<\/p>\n

DOL Proposed Rule<\/p>\n

\u00a0On March 31, the DOL issued a proposed regulation that is much more expansive than the executive order\u2019s scope. Although the regulation\u2019s proposed status calls for patience until the DOL issues a final regulation, the proposal and preamble are particularly noteworthy because they: (i) reiterates the executive order\u2019s broad support for lifetime income strategies and the advisory opinion\u2019s specific support for those strategies as a plan\u2019s QDIA; and (ii) blesses an example of a plan fiduciary including two otherwise-identical asset allocation funds in the plan\u2019s lineup, where the two funds differ only because one includes a lifetime income feature (and corresponding extra cost).<\/p>\n

Related:401(k) Real Talk Episode 198: June 24, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n

Additional Market Developments<\/p>\n

As Congress and the Department of Labor have provided explicit support for retirement income, industry service providers and solutions manufacturers have developed additional resources and options to aid advisors and other plan fiduciaries. For example, Empower has been a market leader in offering innovative ways<\/a> for participants to receive access to a managed account service that includes a retirement income component. Also, Nestimate<\/a>, an independent company whose website leads with the goal of making \u201cit easy to implement retirement income solutions in your defined contribution plan,\u201d has launched a target date fund evaluation tool<\/a> that will help advisors to evaluate TDFs, both with and without retirement income components.<\/p>\n

Related:Record Keepers Face Existential Threats From Fees<\/a><\/p>\n

Traveling the Path<\/p>\n

Industry experts vary when asked, \u201cFor retirement income in defined contribution plans, what inning are we in?\u201d Whatever those specific answers may be, the various developments addressed above indicate that we may be starting the middle innings. Plan participants need advisors and plan sponsors to shift their focus to include not only accumulation,\u00a0but also retirement income<\/a> or \u201cdecumulation.\u201d Congress laid the foundation with the SECURE Act safe harbor, and the DOL is working to pave the path for advisors to do so.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Congress included an annuity selection safe harbor in the SECURE Act, it intended to pave the way…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":517171,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[114,268,85,46,266,267],"class_list":["post-517170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal-finance","tag-business","tag-finance","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-personal-finance","tag-personalfinance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=517170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517170\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/517171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=517170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=517170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=517170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}