Summary

There are many elements to the fees you pay; some are more clearly disclosed than others. This article will describe the key components and calculation details of the Retirement Fee Analyzer tool within Empower Personal Dashboard.

Key Components

The key components to the costs associated with investment accounts are:

The fees for the funds in which your account is invested

Fee information is indicated in the expense ratio column and is based on the fees disclosed by the fund providers.

Plan administrative and advice fees for retirement accounts

These are the fees that are passed on to you from the plan administrators and cover record keeping and advice. They can range from 0% in large company plans to over 1% in plans for smaller companies. We provide a slider that is pre-set which you can change to match your plan administrative and advice fees. For 401k plans, it should be available in the recently required disclosure statement or from your company's benefits administrator.

Unpublished fund fee data

Specialty funds may charge fees that can range from 0.5% to over 3% and are not plainly disclosed. For 401k plans, this data should be available in the recently required disclosures statement and on your plan administrator’s website. We allow you to set the fund fees for the group of funds for which there is no publicly-available data.

Calculation Details

We use your date of birth to determine your current age and selected investment account balances as a starting point for estimating the impact of fees on your retirement goals. We factor in the typical retirement age, expected annual future contributions (employee and employer), your selected risk tolerance, and return on investment based on historical trends and fund administrative and advice fees, some of which are based on specific funds you currently own in your retirement account(s).

From this data we calculate your estimated annual contributions, earnings, and the percentage of earnings lost to fees and present this information graphically so you can easily see what you would have in retirement before and after fees.

Disclaimer

The information provided is for informational purposes only and is based on certain assumptions and historical data. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future returns. No guarantee is made with respect to performance. You may wish to seek the advice of a professional in planning your retirement.