Is It Worth Paying Empower’s Advisors in the UFOA Plan

Every firefighter knows the rule: before the tour starts, you check your gear and the rig and make sure everything is working the way it should. At Brave Eagle Wealth Management, we applied that same mindset to a portfolio built by an Empower advisor inside the UFOA Annuity Plan. Our analysis found that the portfolio—constructed from nearly every fund available in the plan—was redundant, costly, and confusing. It mixed multiple “one-stop” model portfolios that were never meant to be owned together and disclosed fees that appear inconsistent with the calculated costs of one of the plan’s one-stop model portfolios. This report is an independent evaluation of Empower’s in-plan advisory service—the same kind of detailed, data-driven analysis we apply when designing Brave Eagle Wealth Management portfolios. Its purpose is to help FDNY retirees understand what they’re paying for, what they’re actually receiving, and how the value compares with a fully integrated wealth-management approach. Click here to read the report.