People tend to hate change especially when things are good. The problem with a change in the retirement plan business that I find is when a plan provider you’re working with, gets purchased. The people who have led this plan provider usually see a sale as a time to cash out and eventual phaseout, while trying to maintain some order in the handful of years they have left.

I know a thing or two about provider purchases as both third party administrators I worked for, were purchased. The problem with any purchase that I find is that change is inevitable and that change tends to be the phaseout of many of the people that drew you to that plan provider in the first place. In addition, your habits with this plan provider will change, thanks to changes mandated by the new parent company. If the parent and now subsidiary are in the same line of business, there will be far more changes than if the parent is adding this new subsidiary as a new line of business.

Change can be good, but changes in the running of a plan provider you work with, are a little unsettling.