It can’t hurt to have a will (and POA) notorized. I have seen that there are traveling services, if needed for homebound patients - not sure the cost.
I know of a situation where the notary at hospital (I think a volunteer) was a true blessing. It allowed the procrastinating, terminally ill person to write a will specifying nieces/nephews, rather than the default sibling heirs that would have happened without a will. This was key because due to varying numbers of children the family splits would have been different without a will.
That’s just one story along a theme we all know… don’t procrastinate on estate planning .
All my money stays in my 401k. I’m not retired but why would I move it. My wife hasn’t worked in 20 years but still has her 401K with her old employer.
The 401Ks are through brokerage accounts - so not reason to change them. And some have funds that have lower expense fees. But also have admin charges.
So it’s really an expense/fee, offering, and convenience type factor more than anything I’d think.
Perhaps because of the minimum withdrawal, it’s easier to have all in one - i don’t know. Not there yet. Not close to 72.
Some retirees roll over to IRA to get better/different investment options. But so far, I’m ok with my employer Fidelity options. (We don’t tinker with it much.) Someday when older and needing funds (or RMD) I likely will do a a rollover to Schwab IRA with our FA and pay management fees.
That’s a difference. I won’t have one. I meant admin fees -some companies charge $25 or $50 a year that I could save if I moved. But they also get institutional funds with lower annual fees.
It’s really convenience or in your case where your advisor puts their clients funds.
But I would ask if you’ve self managed all these years and are happy with the results, why give a significant chunk to an advisor ??
I had one case where the company that was holding the employer 401k insisted that any change of address had to be handled through the employer. However, the employer insisted that since I no longer worked there, they had no interest in and would not accept a change of address. The only way I could get my statements sent to me was to roll the 401k over into an IRA at a different investment company. About a year later I got a call from the first 401k provider that they were unable to send me my final statement because they did not have an up to date address for me. They made a special exception to their rules in order to send it to my actual address, but it sounded like they only did this just to make the problem go away so they didn’t have to deal with it anymore.
Another reason for doing a rollover, which applied in a different case, was to reduce the number of different places that were holding part of my retirement funds.
And my spouse did a rollover at one point to reduce the expenses.
This is Gemini’s answer to my question about protections on the two different accounts.
Yes, 401(k) plans generally offer stronger protection than IRAs against both bankruptcy and creditors.
Bankruptcy Protection
401(k): Under federal ERISA law, these accounts have unlimited protection from the bankruptcy estate.
IRA: Protection is capped by federal law. As of April 2025, the exemption limit for traditional and Roth IRAs is approximately $1,711,975 (adjusted for inflation every three years).
Creditor Protection (Outside Bankruptcy)
401(k): These are “anti-alienation” accounts, meaning creditors generally cannot touch them due to federal ERISA protections. This applies regardless of which state you live in.
IRA: Protection depends entirely on state law. In California, IRAs are only exempt to the extent “reasonably necessary” for your support during
Yes, in some company plans there are no fees charged if you are employed there. Once you leave, they start piling on the fees. My daughter just moved her 401 (k) from an earlier employee into a rollover IRA, both in fidelity, to stop those pesky fees.
Everyone has said what I was going to. I finally rolled my 401k to an IRA about 20 years after leaving the company. No real reason other than it seemed simpler to get them out of the equation, both for me and potential heirs. Yes, more options are available, but it’s not like I am going to spend tons of time researching all the new options. I mostly stuck with what I always had.
Consolidation is another good reason. My husband had an IRA at a bank we never use, at one point we just merged it into an existing retirement brokerage account.
Funny - I never think about these things - I figure Schwab, B of A, etc - too big too fail. But I read an article that said even if you have stocks, you are only protected up to their insurance level….and even though they provide insurance beyond the law, no carrier could cover the entirety of assets they hold.
Look out below.
I’m not sure short of opening brokerages and only putting int he federal limits at each, what else could you do?
I just assume these situations will never happen. Hope I’m right.
It’s funny I keep seeing articles about roll over IRAs and professionally managed accounts
I read that on average that a professionally managed account does 4% better than the self managed ones. That would make up for the 1% in fees that we pay.
Our IRA has more options for investing, we also seems to have more options to meet with our advisors than when we had the employer based 401k. We tinker with the percentages and adjust every year or so.
We have another brokerage firm that has a completely different way of investing so we have a small amount of money with them. We will be able to compare the two different philosophies and see who does better!
I think of a financial advisor the same way I think about hiring other professionals to do the work we aren’t as good at. I’m having someone tile my bathroom because it’s what they do for living. I don’t.
Using a fee-based FA for is something we would not have considered before the ramp down to retirement. They don’t necessarily get better returns. For us it’s more about having somebody who helps us design our strategies for asset consolidation and spend-down (though happily the good market has enabled portfolio to keep growing). It’s our way to have a process that keeps us paying attention to our assets/spending and gives us a neutral/educated 3rd party to help manage. The FA does know from the quarterly snapshots we provide about money kept elsewhere (my 401K and one of husband’s IRA not with the FA/Schwab acct), advises accordingly
I haven’t seen that figure. If not selective marketing of a particular best performing account, I suspect that higher return primarily relates to basic bad investor decisions, such as not knowing their accounts are primarily in cash (vast majority of young persons keep their retirement accounts in cash for many years after a 401k rollover to IRA) or investors selling equities after a severe crash and waiting until recovery is largely complete before buying back, rather than professional managers being good at predicting which stocks/sectors will be winners in future.
Active managers can tailor for risk and take advantage of inefficiencies and things like that - but passive investing wins most of time.
I don’t see a date on this Wharton Article - but shows over a decade, passive beat active 97% of the time in large and mid-cap and 77% of the time in small-cap.
Pretty much any article you read in Forbes, Fortune, Kiplinger on these subjects shares the same thing.
It’s well known that passive beats active in most cases - which is how the Vanguard’s of the world exist.
Now, you can say - but my age and risk tolerance and all that, etc. - and yes, but all these fund companies have low cost or no cost programs for that.
Active management is for the really wealthy that can access certain things mere mortals can’t - or for people who need hand holding.
But as far as returns go, it’s unlikely to ever beat passive investing on an overall basis. And those that outperform in a given year are more likely to underperform in another.
Not to mention, active also builds trading fees and capital gains at a whole other level.
But everyone can and should use the methods they are comfortable with. But I’d be interested to see the source showing active wins and wins handily.
I worked for a small company that refused to allow me to keep my 401-k with their provider. It was doing really well, so I kept it there until they made me move it. I had a 403b but no other 401 k. I didn’t know if I could roll it into a 403b, so I just rolled it into a Fidelity IRA that I opened for that purpose.
If you’re happy, I’m happy - but it does blow my mind that someone would pay to use what is likely going to be a less successful formula - so you are knowing you are likely to get worse returns - and yet paying for the priviledge.
It’s everyone’s right and I don’t begrudge it - but it’s one of those things I just can never get my mind around.
I also use an advisor, and I am getting better returns than I got on my own. So color me stupid, but I have no issue with paying a professional to do what I cannot (for whatever reason) do myself.
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