Alerus Online

Plan sponsors often seek a balance between convenience for the participant and ease of administration for benefits staff when considering plan enrollment options. Alerus Online enrollment provides this balance by eliminating the traditional paperwork in favor of enrollment that can be done anywhere and at any time.

Participant Experience

Participants can access guided enrollment to help them set up salary deferrals and direct investment allocations.

Education is available to participants during enrollment, covering topics like risk tolerance, plan highlights, and fund fact sheets.

Enrollment instructions are emailed to eligible participants containing links to enrollment and the Employee Resource Center, as well as information to assist in creating their My Alerus account. If there is no email address on file, a letter will be mailed to the participant’s home address.

Sponsor Benefits

All enrollment kit materials are available online. This reduces waste and ensures materials are always current. Initial plan notices will be sent electronically to participants upon enrollment when there is an email address on file. Responsibility for any mailed notices and the ongoing distribution of required documents are the responsibility of the plan sponsor unless Alerus is providing fulfillment services.

Electronic Statements

Participants will receive an email notification when their quarterly participant statement is available for download. Electronic statements are environmentally friendly and allow participants earlier access to their retirement statement than a traditional mailed statement.

Deferral Changes

Along with setting up salary deferrals during the enrollment process, participants will have the ability to make changes make changes online. With automatic contribution increases, participants can elect to have their deferrals increase slowly — by 1-2% per year — until a deferral goal is met. Participants who set automatic increases report barely noticing the small decrease in their pay and find it well worth the increased savings.

Investment Allocations

Investment allocations can also be changed online. Additionally, participants have access to online programs to help guide them toward a diversified portfolio right for their personal situation. With automatic account realignment, long-term investors can maintain diversification and desired risk levels by scheduling a regular, automated rebalancing of their portfolios.

Loan Center

For plans that offer participant loans, online loan modeling and application are available.

Distribution Center

Participants can request a distribution online, including initiating rollovers into another plan. This includes a fully digital process for eligible terminated participants.

With Alerus Online, all participant confirmations will be available electronically.

Alerus will send these notices to participants:

• Safe harbor
• Summary annual report
• QDIA
• Participant fee disclosure
• Automatic enrollment

As required, Alerus will send these notices to participants:

• Summary of material modifications
• Fund change
• Summary plan description
• Blackout notice

The plan sponsor will remain responsible for:

• Notifying Alerus when they have new employees upon hire, via
• Updating participant addresses via contribution file
• Submitting list of new entrants to Alerus — for plans with online enrollment

Participants can designate primary and secondary beneficiaries online and make changes at any time. Plan-level reports are available to determine whether participants have designated beneficiaries, allowing sponsors to ensure their participants’ wishes are recorded.