NonQualified Benefit Plan Examples

Companies should partner with a plan administer which enable the company to offer plans with unlimited flexibility and the ability to administer such plans without draining the company's valuable human resources. Companies should be able to establish different parameters for each of its participants and combine multiple plans onto one reporting platform. Participants should be able to access their accounts, online, 24/7 and perform transactions that are automatically processed. And, companies should be able to match financing assets to benefit liabilities, thereby protecting itself from investment risk, on a daily basis. How? TCG has developed a state-of-the-art, straight-through processing, plan administration technology which streamlines the administration of even the most complex plans. TCG's administration system combines the design, implementation and administration process on to one platform. In addition, a plan's liabilities and financing assets are administered, real time, on the same system, solving the problems existing in the benefits industry today (as discussed below).

The Problems with Most Benefit Plan Technology

In today's environment, navigating the nonqualified benefits market is often like running a maze. A variety of highly segregated processes exist in the industry. Most nonqualified benefit firms maintain two separate systems - one system for designing a benefit plan and a second system for administering the plan. And, if a client wishes to improve the cost-efficiency of the benefit plan through financing, this is accomplished via a third system or outdated programs on cds. The results from these three systems are generally combined through an excel spreadsheet. Because of the complexity of this process, customers are often not granted much flexibility in the final plan design.

Once a plan design is accepted, it must be redesigned in the administration system, often generating similar, but not identical, results. The financing asset, in contrast, is administered on the asset provider's separate administration system. As a result, daily matching of financing assets to benefit liabilities is rare. And, ongoing projections and illustrations of results must be compiled by a team of actuarial staff on computer spreadsheets. This invariably leads to delayed, contradictory results; inefficiencies (and higher costs); unnecessary exposure to error and, ultimately, client dissatisfaction.

Finally, administrators and financing asset providers are tasked with maintaining all of these ever-growing, costly and inefficient systems, along with the additional burden of attracting and employing the specialists needed to maintain them.

The TCG Technology Solution

To address these issues, TCG's technology system was developed from the ground up. Utilizing a Joint Application Development approach, the system was designed through the active participation of administrators and financing asset providers working with a technology staff over a period of 48 months. The result is a feature-rich, easy-to-use, multi-faceted, web-based system that truly meets the needs of clients and plan participants.

TCG's technology system provides a single source for all design, implementation and administration calculations for both the benefit plan and the financing assets. (Achieving this level of integration eliminates any discrepancies between the design and administration processes.)

Through a common, Internet-based interface and single point of access, TCG's technology is easy to use and has a consistent "look and feel" throughout the entire system.

TCG's system provides added value for its clients through:

1. Dramatic savings in plan administration costs (minimal dependence on human processing),

2. Accurate and timely information,

3. Plan design flexibility,

4. Ease of transition from design to administration,

5. Online enrollment,

6. Online access to plan information and transaction processing,

7. Timely, accurate client reporting,

8. Daily balancing of financing assets to benefit plan liabilities and

9. State-of-the-art security.

Contact The Cochlan Group for a demonstration of our benefit technology.