Standard Retirement Services, Inc. is offering new fiduciary protection services. The company can now act as an ERISA 3(16) fiduciary in performing certain plan administrative duties on behalf of plan sponsors who delegate these tasks. These duties can include required compliance testing, plan eligibility notifications, approval of participant loans and distributions and delivery of required participant notifications and disclosures.

"Plan sponsors must take on considerable administrative responsibilities in order to comply with ERISA regulations," said Dan Hall, vice president of Retirement Plan Sales. "By leveraging our internal expertise and resources, we are able to take on a significant amount of plan sponsors' administrative burden while better supplementing the offerings of plan advisors."

StanCorp Investment Advisers, Inc. can now take on ERISA 3(38) fiduciary responsibility for the removal and replacement of investments at the plan level. This expanded layer of protection adds to The Standard's existing fiduciary capabilities, which include acting as an ERISA 3(21) fiduciary for the selection and ongoing monitoring of the investments offered in a plan sponsor's retirement plan and acting as an ERISA 3(38) fiduciary for participants who are enrolled in Mainspring Managed, the company's goal-based savings and investment planning and advice service.