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Safe-Harbor IRA®

Helping Manage Your Automatic Rollover IRAs

Centier is an industry leader in providing creative, cost effective and professional solutions for all your retirement plan needs. The staff at Centier has been at the forefront of implementing a solution to comply with the automatic rollover requirements of EGTRRA and has been developing the Safe-Harbor-IRA® program since 2001. Now that the Department of Labor has issued final regulations to protect plan sponsors in continuing mandatory distributions, Centier is ready with the services you need.

No Cost To Plan Sponsor

Unlike some other automatic rollover programs, there is absolutely no cost to the plan sponsor for participating in the Safe-Harbor-IRA® program. In fact, you reduce expense and eliminate fiduciary liability exposure by removing these small balance accounts from your plan. All fees are charged to the individual IRA and are extremely competitive. Our set-up fee is only $50 and the annual fee is also $50. There are discounts available for large plan volume. There are no transfer, termination or distribution fees.

A Premier Investment Option

Client assets are invested in a special FDIC insured savings account that is a fully qualified investment under the Department of Labor regulation. This savings investment was created especially for the Safe-Harbor-IRA® and pays interest tied to the 90-day Treasury bill rate plus 10 basis points. The rate is adjusted monthly to reflect current conditions and take advantage of any increases in the benchmark rate. The name of the investment is the First Company Safe Harbor Money fund, and it always pays interest higher than any other savings or money market investment.

Technology and Exclusive Documentation that Makes Implementation Effortless

Centier offers plan sponsors an exclusive dual fiduciary and agency agreement that enables you to sign only one document to select an automatic rollover provider and validate all current and future IRAs - whether one or one thousand. We have developed the technology to accept a simple data export from your recordkeeper to automatically create and fund the IRA without any resource commitment from either the plan sponsor or their recordkeeper. Rather than adding to a plan sponsors workload, we eliminate the growing headache of dealing with mandatory distributions.

A Qualified and Experienced Trustee

Centier Bank is a fully qualified retirement plan provider within the meaning of Section 7701(a)(37) of the Internal revenue Code. As a qualified trustee, Centier will accept and administer all eligible automatic rollover accounts regardless of size, including those under $1,000 (and over $5,000 for terminating plans). Having worked to develop the Safe-Harbor-IRA® since 2001, Centier offers you the support of a dedicated service team who are expert in all aspects of IRAs. That service starts with a Plan Sponsor Automatic Rollover Kit (on CD) that includes the exclusive fiduciary and agency agreement, a model plan amendment to implement automatic rollovers, a model resolution to adopt the amendment and a model Summary of Material Modification to provide required notice to participants. Also included on the CD is a sample of the participant Welcome Kit that is sent out as soon as the IRA is opened.

World Class Service

We want your participants to thank you for making the right decision in the selection of an automatic rollover provider. This means that we treat the assets entrusted to us in the Safe-Harbor-IRA® program as though they were our own personal funds. For this reason, Centier will resist attempts by any state treasurer or other political agency to claim these funds by rule of escheat or otherwise. If a participant is missing, we will make every effort to locate them and make them aware of the account created on their behalf. We perform, at our expense, periodic skip-trace (locator) searches in addition to posting notice of the account on the unclaimedretirementbenefits.com web site. We also give notice of missing participants to the State Treasurer in all 50 states for publication in their unclaimed property notices. Account statements are available online on the Internet or by mail at the option of the participant.

Centier has been voted the best bank in the region for ten consecutive years for a reason. That reason is our reputation for treating all our clients like members of our family. We pride ourselves on creating "WOW" experiences for our clients. For you, this translates to total plan sponsor support. In administering the Safe-Harbor-IRA® program, we want you to reach a live person on every call. If you do get voice-mail, your call usually will be returned within an hour, but always the same day during normal business hours (8:00 AM to 5:00 PM CST). Perhaps most importantly, we will insulate you from participant inquiries after the transfer of the plan balance into the automatic rollover account.

Risk Questionnaires

A series of questionnaires have been provided to help you determine the best course for your investment needs. Simply answer the questions to determine your score for a suggested model portfolio. These are simply guides to investing and should not be considered investment advice. You may choose to allocate your assets based on these portfolio illustrations or design a portfolio mix of your own. Your investment professional can provide details regarding the specific allocation of these Portfolio Mixes. In applying any particular asset allocation model to your individual situation, you should consider all of your assets, income and investments.

Future Retirement
Current Retirement
Education
Multiple Goals

Contact Us Today

To learn more, please contact James A. Boyd at 1-888-236-8437 (or directly at 219-922-2410, ext 311), or send an e-mail to safe-ira@centier.com.

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