Discover financial solutions that protect your future and provide peace of mind. Whether you're exploring annuities, life insurance, or understanding employee benefits through your workplace, Pacific Life offers resources and products designed to meet your personal and family goals.
Support your workforce with innovative employee benefits and retirement solutions. Pacific Life partners with business owners, benefits administrators, and pension fund managers to create customized programs that attract and retain top talent while securing their financial future.
Simplify complex retirement and pension risk management with our tailored solutions for large organizations. Pacific Life specializes in working with institutions to address their unique challenges, offering expertise in pension de-risking and strategic retirement planning for a more secure future.
Empower your clients with confidence by leveraging Pacific Life’s comprehensive portfolio of financial products. From annuities to life insurance, we provide the tools, resources, and support to help financial advisors and brokers deliver exceptional value and long-term results.
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Individuals
Discover financial solutions that protect your future and provide peace of mind. Whether you're exploring annuities, life insurance, or understanding employee benefits through your workplace, Pacific Life offers resources and products designed to meet your personal and family goals.
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Employers
Support your workforce with innovative employee benefits and retirement solutions. Pacific Life partners with business owners, benefits administrators, and pension fund managers to create customized programs that attract and retain top talent while securing their financial future.
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Institutions
Simplify complex retirement and pension risk management with our tailored solutions for large organizations. Pacific Life specializes in working with institutions to address their unique challenges, offering expertise in pension de-risking and strategic retirement planning for a more secure future.
-
Financial Professionals & Brokers
Empower your clients with confidence by leveraging Pacific Life’s comprehensive portfolio of financial products. From annuities to life insurance, we provide the tools, resources, and support to help financial advisors and brokers deliver exceptional value and long-term results.
June 2025
PEPs: Benefits of Integrating Retirement Income into Pooled Employer Plans
With the passage of the SECURE Act in 2019, Pooled Employer Plans (PEPs) were enacted into law. PEPs allow for a new type of retirement plan, where multiple, unrelated employers can participate in a single Defined Contribution (DC) plan. These PEPs offer benefits such as improved economies of scale, reduced administrative burden, and less financial risk.
This law also required the identification and registration of a pooled plan provider to function as a plan administrative fiduciary, or 3(16), over the pooled employer plan. Pooled Plan Providers include recordkeepers, consultants, and other financial services firms. Since 2020, the PEP market has grown quickly to $10.8 billion in assets across 210 PEPs, encompassing 24,000 employers and 1.1 million PEP participants.1
Potential Benefit To Employers
Employers may benefit from joining a PEP through improved cost savings by pooling resources, streamlining processes, and collectively lowering investment fees. These benefits can include greater access to a wider range of professionally managed options and the ability to offer more robust communication programs.
In addition, employers can also benefit from the fiduciary oversight in evaluating and offering lifetime income solutions. Together, all these benefits can potentially help deliver improved participant education and better retirement outcomes than smaller plans could otherwise deliver on their own.
Potential Benefit For Employees
Employees (participants) may benefit from their employer joining a PEP through potentially improved access to a broader range of lower fee investment options that can lead to better long-term outcomes.
These outcomes can be defined by the ability to generate consistent income from accumulated DC balances in a variety of ways, including systematic withdrawals, stand-alone annuities or asset allocation strategies such as target date funds or managed accounts that automatically allocate to lifetime income that can help manage expenses in retirement.
By including lifetime income options within PEPs, multiple small and mid-sized employers can collectively offer their employees access to institutional-grade retirement income solutions that might otherwise be unavailable or unaffordable on an individual plan basis. Moreover, including lifetime income options in PEPs promotes retirement readiness and supports fiduciary best practices. With the pooled structure, plan sponsors can leverage economies of scale, reduce administrative burdens, and access professional plan management and investment oversight across accumulation and decumulation strategies. This structure can make it easier to implement annuities prudently and cost-effectively, while also providing participants with education and support to understand and utilize these lifetime income solutions.
IN CONCLUSION, as the retirement landscape continues to evolve away from Defined Benefit plans, the inclusion of lifetime income options in PEPs enhances the overall value and sustainability of DC plans of all sizes for the benefit of millions of American workers seeking a dignified and financially secure retirement.
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1Cerulli U.S. Defined Contribution Distribution 2024
Pacific Life is a product provider. It is not a fiduciary and therefore does not give advice or make recommendations regarding insurance or investment products. Pacific Life, its affiliates, its distributors, and respective representatives do not provide any employer-sponsored qualified plan administrative services or impartial advice about investments and do not act in a fiduciary capacity for any plan.
This material is provided for informational purposes only and should not be construed as investment, tax, or legal advice.
Information is based on current laws, which are subject to change at any time. Clients should consult with their accounting or tax professionals for guidance regarding their specific financial situations.
Pacific Life refers to Pacific Life Insurance Company and its affiliates, including Pacific Life & Annuity Company. Insurance products can be issued in all states, except New York, by Pacific Life Insurance Company or Pacific Life & Annuity Company. In New York, insurance products are only issued by Pacific Life & Annuity Company. Product availability and features may vary by state. Each insurance company is solely responsible for the financial obligations accruing under the products it issues.
The home office for Pacific Life & Annuity Company is located in Phoenix, Arizona. The home office for Pacific Life Insurance Company is located in Omaha, Nebraska.
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