I always say that picking a plan provider just on price is a bad idea and I will say that picking a provider just on your years of experience is another folly.

I have 25 years of experience and when I had a couple of years of experience, I noticed that there were some plan administrators and actuaries that had 20 plus experience, who had no idea what they were doing. Time doesn’t make someone any good, perhaps when they started, they didn’t get the proper training or they didn’t partake in any continuing education., Whatever it is, there are many people out there with lots of experience who don’t know what they do. Years of experience don’t matter, it’s the quality of the experience that does.

Years ago, I knew a young attorney who was a real estate and tax attorney. A potential client for a real estate sale didn’t hire him because she thought he was too young. She hired an older attorney, who then embezzled from the sale of her home.

There are so many criteria you should consider in hiring a plan provider and harping on one criterion is a mistake.