Nicholas Pension Consultants

This is an update from my previous review. After posting the last review I received an email from one of the owners by the name of Andy. He was very concerned with my posting. He had noted that they do not do shady business and that he would do everything to get to the bottom of why I didn’t received the service up to their standards. He called and we talked about the whole situation. He followed up with everyone involved and who I was dealing with at the time. He followed up with me many times letting me know his actions. He was very sorry and did everything he could to try and resolve the issues. I really appreciate that he made such an effort to correct the issues and followed up with the staff involved and made sure that they gave service up to the standards of Nicholas Pension. Since the call, and now I know that it really matters what kind of service they give, I would be willing to try them again after the follow up I received from Andy.

In my opinion, these people are crooks.
I was a participant of a 401k plan, they were administrators on. Our 401k «advisors» put us into extremely overpriced target date funds and the management fees consumed all the market gains.
When I tried to roll my money to IRA, Nicholas Pension Consultants tried to charge me $ 95 for what amounts to a bank transfer without even getting permission from me to do this.
Resolving the issue with them was absolutely impossible. They simply went completely silent.
I had to raise issue all the way to the plan sponsor to get this resolved.

These folks have managed our 401(k) Plan and Profit Sharing for the past 10 years. We have had wonderful experiences with Nicholas Pension over the years — our plan administrator there is amazing (and only our second in a decade). Excellent firm!

This review is from a participating employee’s perspective. I recently landed an awesome new job with a company that uses Nicholas Pension’s services. My employer gave me a booklet to read and asked me to submit my decision to participate or not by the end of the week. The booklet, I swear, was written in a foreign language. What is «vesting»? «Safe Harbor»? «Matching»? What!!! «Someone is going to need to explain this to me because I have no idea what I’m getting into,» I frantically told my employer. HR kindly directed me to Nicholas and my questions were answered relatively quickly. The administrator that helped me was Christie and she explained everything in plain terms. I felt much more confident about making an educated decision after speaking with her. I’ve asked for help on several different occasions now for various concerns and it’s been a pleasant experience every time. The people that take my calls are always very helpful and responsive. I love that because the truth is I really don’t know what I’m doing half time and their expertise is vital. I’m glad my employer decided to protect their employees’ sanity by hiring professionals to handle their retirement plan. It definitely shows that they want to take care of their people by making sure everything is done right.
Summary Statement: From a participating employee’s perspective, hiring Nicholas to handle the company’s retirement plan was an great investment in the company’s future. It promotes efficiency in the workplace and confidence in the employer by eliminating nonsense that often occurs when HR isn’t trained to handle retirement plans. It is comforting to know that answers are always only a phone call or email away should I ever need them. In the end, it is one less thing to have to worry about so I can focus my time and energy on producing quality work for an employer that I know cares about my wellbeing.

After two and a half years of total frustration, we are switching TPA. This company and our particular liaison within the company, was inattentive to detail, took a month to answer a question, and took three months to get us a contribution figure. Worst client relationship and service I have experienced. I have never posted to Unilocal yet I feel compelled to do so today.

After working with several other TPA firms in the area, I am pleased with my experience at Nicholas Pension. Honesty and integrity as well as a cutting edge attention to new regulations and how they impact clients make Nicholas Pension a TPA of choice. A significant amount of time and resources is spent on continuing education as well as compliance which most TPA firms are not competent in. This is the company I would want to assist me if my 401(k) were audited by the IRS. I highly recommend Nicholas Pension and I am completely confident in their services.

Greedy and Unethical.
Been with them since it was Nicholas and Hicks. They badly messed up plan opening documents and apologized profusely to stay with them in the face of shabby work.
The person I have been interacting with is generally good and responsive.
After paying thousands of dollars for their service that does not really add that much value, they send an invoice for a paltry sum that is not even worth my time. The person who referred us to them was a greedy financial advisor as well. Ended up getting out of the poor 401k plan that he put together for us.

Hi all,
I think that it is a good idea for NPC not to be involved any further at this point. I do agree that this has been one of the worst client relationships that I have ever experienced. Thanks.
Regards,
— — — — -
So you may wonder why a professional services firm would send such a terse note to a client of three years. Well we finally got our ducks in a row and were transitioning our business to a much more reputable firm and found the work done by Nicholas Pension was completely inadequate and in my opinion I would stay clear if you want to remain compliant with IRS statutes. Nicholas dropped the ball numerous times on our account and was looking to extract a large sum of money to «fix» our past situation, when we brought this to their attention vs. helping they ran like cockroaches. This is not the way a firm in this business should act, I shiver at thinking at how many unsuspecting businesses they have fleeced.
You have been duly warned, stay far away.

Nicholas provides quality third party administrative services to small business 401k plans at a reasonable fee. The staff is responsive and very helpful. They work with hundreds of financial advisors and thousands of small businesses throughout California and I have been very happy working with them for several years.