Western Pension &
Benefits Conference -
Los Angeles Chapter
WP&BC
NEWS
A
Quarterly Publication for Pension and Benefits Professionals
WP&BC News
Winter 2007
President's Message
Dear Members:
I hope everyone found time to enjoy their
summer. Time, we as professionals are constantly managing it, allotting
it, and often push the envelope on getting as much out of the 24 hours we
have each day.
Serving as your Los Angeles Chapter
President for 2007-2008, no I do not want to become your life coach,
managing your time to achieve the perfect existence. I’ll leave that to
you and to other people. As is the mission of WPBC though, I do want to
provide, along with our board committee, exceptional retirement and
benefits programs that will be of considerable value to you and your
clients for the time that you commit.
For 2007-2008, our programming will be a
combination of live evening presentations and web-based events. The live
presentations will be held every other month with the web-based events
occurring during the in-between months.
Delivering quality, relevant, retirement and
benefits programs in various formats to educate new arrivals to our
industry and to further educate the veterans is our continued primary
goal. In addition, WPBC-LA also provides an outstanding range of
retirement and benefits resources and networking opportunities.
I wish all of you a prosperous and healthy
2007-2008 and mark your calendars with WPBC-LA programs now- times a’
wasting!
Please feel free to forward this newsletter
onto your colleagues!
Carl Esterhay
Wells Fargo Institutional Trust Group
David Gordon, Esq.
Pearl Meyer & Partners
Michael Hammond
Storm Industries, Inc.
George Latrice
Southern California Edison Co.
Thomas Masenga
Allen Matkins
Ruben Ramirez
Securian Retirement Services
Wendy Walter
R. K. Schaaf Associates
2007/2008 Board Members
Mike Anderson
President
Bruce Ashton, Esq.
|
President-Elect
SummerConley Treasurer
Marimil De La Sierra
Secretary
Bruce Baldwin Member at Large - Annual Meeting Program Chair
Ron Cooke
Member at Large - Program Chair
Leo Thomas Member at Large - Significant Issues Chair
Susana Rivera Ryan Member at Large -
Special Projects
Ellen Yeany
Immediate Past President
Mary Kotzman
Spring Seminar
Barbara Oberman
Program Co-chair
Cheryl Courtney
Membership Chair
Denise Feldman
Newsletter Chair
Janine Nichols, CAE
Executive Director
Copyright 2005,
Western Pension & Benefits Conference,
Los Angeles Chapter
2008 ANNUAL SPRING SEMINAR
Wednesday
April 30th - MARK YOUR CALENDAR
Wed April 30, 2008 8:00 A.M. - 6:00 P.M.
Pickwick Gardens Conference Center
1001 Riverside Dr.
Burbank, CA 91506
The 2008 Summit will provide plan sponsors and benefit professionals with
information to keep their plans in compliance and up-to-date. Ten presentations by industry experts will provide useful information and helpful tips about ongoing
and new requirements for employee benefit plans and executive compensation.
Continuing Education (CE) credits for JBEA, NIPA, NASBA, MCLE.
4:45-6:00 pm -
Networking & Member Appreciation Cocktail Party - to thank our members for a
wonderful year, we are inviting all members to attend this reception, even if
you are not able to attend the entire Spring Seminar.
Do you have a job to post?
Click here to post a job on the website.
It will also appear in the next newsletter. Members can post jobs at
no charge. Non-member postings are $75.
Health surveys are becoming
an increasingly popular way to identify employees with medical
conditions, especially among self-insured employers that can benefit
financially from a healthier work force. However, some employees are
concerned about how the survey results are used. San Francisco
Chronicle. (Click the title above for the complete story.) Used with
permission from California Healthline
http://www.californiahealthline.org/
A key Assembly Democrat
warned that Gov. Schwarzenegger's health reform plan might not get a
hearing in his committee until January 2008, saying that the Legislature
should take time to carefully study funding options for health care
reform. Sacramento Bee et al. (Click the title above for the
complete story.) Used with permission from California Healthline
http://www.californiahealthline.org/
We have an
exciting list of topics for this year's programs.
What to Expect in
2008 for Pension and Retirement Plans. What is coming up in the
areas of retirement plan regulations, legal issues, and
administration.
Featuring:
Mary Elizabeth Redding, FSA Senior Vice
President
Ms. Redding is a Senior
Vice President and the leader of Aon’s Los Angeles and West Region
Retirement Practices. She has 25 years of experience in all
phases of retirement programs.
Relevant experience: Pension
and retiree medical design, valuations and consulting on all aspects of benefits
and administration, nondiscrimination testing for complex organizations and
retirement plans and Asset/Liability Modeling.
Mary Beth is the author of “Asset
Liability Modeling: Putting Plan Sponsors in the Driver’s Seat”, Journal
of Pension Benefits, Summer 2003. She spoke at the 2007 Enrolled Actuaries
meeting on Strategies Under the Pension Protection Act.
Mary Beth graduated from Yale
University in 1980 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Geology and Geophysics.
She is an Enrolled Actuary under ERISA, a Fellow of the Society of Actuaries and
a Member of the American Academy of Actuaries.
Summer Conley is a
counsel in O'Melveny & Myers' Los Angeles office and a member of the Firm's Tax
Practice. Her area of practice is employee benefits with a focus on health and
welfare benefits.
Illustrative
Professional Experience Representation of numerous clients preparing for the HIPAA privacy rules
Representation of various companies in drafting medical plans, cafeteria plans,
and COBRA notices
Education Pepperdine School of Law, J.D.: summa cum laude; Note and Comment Editor,
Pepperdine Law Review
University of California, Santa Barbara, B.A.
Billy Beaveris the Regional Director of the Los Angeles Regional Office
of the U.S. Department of Labor’s Employee Benefit Security Administration (EBSA
- previously known as the Pension and Welfare Benefits Administration) and
is responsible for administering and enforcing the ERISA in Southern California,
Arizona and Hawaii.
Is
your insurance agent or consultant properly licensed to offer services?
The State of
California Department of Insurance is the entity responsible for
licensing all insurance agents and consultants who advise clients on
insurance policies. Within the scope of Health & Welfare benefits, a
little known distinction in the insurance code differentiates between
two different licenses—a Life Agent license, under which an agent may
earn commission for his services and a Life and Disability Insurance
Analyst license, under which a consultant may charge a consulting fee.
The two types of licenses are mutually exclusive, in that an agent or
consultant may not simultaneously earn a commission as well as charge a
consulting fee for services related to the same transaction. To check
the licensing status of an agent or consultant, go to
http://www.insurance.ca.gov/0200-industry/0070-check-license-status/
Article Excerpts from the REACH Fiduciary
Newsletter
Qualified Default
Investment Rules May Spark Legal Action - Summary: U.S. workers
will have legal recourse against Plan Sponsors when, at retirement, they
are left with insufficient balances in their 401ks because their Plans
were defaulted into Formulaic Asset Allocation (FAA) funds, (Lifecycle,
Target Date, Managed Accounts), according to the Chicago-based research
organization, Compass Institute. Located at: 401khelpcenter.com. Click on
headline for full article.
401k Plan Potential
Mistakes - Summary: This 43 page document was prepared by the IRS
and tells you what potential plan mistake there are, how to identify the
them, how to correct the mistake and how to avoid the problem. Lots of
good information. Located at: IRS
.
Click on headline for full article.
.
Click on headline for full article.
