Understanding Investment Election Mapping for Plans Converting to the Vestwell Platform

Thank you for using Vestwell to support your retirement plan clients. We are excited to provide your clients and their employees with a superior savings experience. In order to facilitate the conversion of existing defined contribution plans to our platform, we will work with the plan’s prior recordkeeper to properly upload current savers’ investment elections to the Vestwell platform.

In the event that one or more of your plan’s investment options cannot be supported on our platform or if you’d like to modify/keep the investment program lineup moving forward, we need your direction on how savers’ investment elections should be mapped when the plan is transitioned to our platform. We refer to this process as Investment Election Mapping. We offer this to make the transition as seamless as possible.

As a reminder, and as stated in your Advisor Intake Form and on our Help Center, it is your responsibility as the plan’s investment fiduciary to provide us with Investment Election Mapping instructions and, as with all investments you select for the plan, to select, monitor, and benchmark them.

Your Next Steps

  • Investment Election Mapping Instructions: Vestwell requires written instructions on the investment election mappings from the previous provider. We will provide you with a template for your instructions. Your Vestwell representative will contact you to obtain this information during the onboarding process. We require these instructions no later than five days following the Plan Launch Call. 
  • Current Saver Investment Elections: Vestwell needs savers’ current investment selections no later than two weeks after the employer signs our plan services agreement. Additionally, some payroll companies or the plan’s prior service providers may charge a fee for sending us census files or other materials. Vestwell is not responsible for paying any such charges and, if applicable, will pass them to the employer in the next quarterly invoice.

Additional Points About Investment Election Mapping

  • 1:1 Mappings: Vestwell currently supports 1:1 fund mapping; in other words, a current fund in the investment lineup can only be mapped to one other single fund.
  • Saver Communications: Vestwell will provide savers with a fund change notice that explains the new investment options and Investment Election Mapping that you provide to us. This notice will be sent contemporaneously with a Blackout Notice.
  • Future Contributions: Once the investment election mapping is completed, all future employee and employer contributions for the saver will be invested in the new investment. As always, savers can update their investment elections and rebalance settings at any time once they register on the platform.
  • Existing Plan Assets: Plan assets are not being transferred in-kind through our conversion process. We will liquidate and reinvest all plan assets according to the Investment Election information provided by you and the prior recordkeeper.

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