To be clear, the Department of Labor never states that Plan Fees be the lowest cost. But they do make it clear that plan fees need to be reasonable.

Unfortunately, the fees of retirement plans can be "sliced and diced "in so many ways it's hard to know what your plan is truly costing. One of the best ways to truly understand your fees is to have your company's retirement plan benchmarked and reviewed by a third party (that is, not your current provider). Part of our benchmarking process is a total cost analysis.

Some thoughts on Total Cost Analysis include:

• Are you being serviced versus what you are paying?
  
• Price is more competitive than in years gone by. Have you received a price reduction recently? Even so, how do you know if it was competitive?
  
• The only way to know for sure is to compare your plan not to the industry average, but to the current market pricing for plans similar in size and cash flow.
  
• How are fees allocated among participants? Are all your participants paying the same retirement plan costs or are some paying more than others based on investments chosen? Yes, this happens. Do you feel it's fair?