The ABC Retirement & Savings Plan is a 401(k) Multiple Employer Plan available only to Associated Builders and Contractors member firms, including HVAC, mechanical, plumbing, and electrical contractors that participate in ABC's open-shop model. Adopting the plan shifts fiduciary responsibility for plan management, service-provider selection, investment due diligence, and day-to-day administration from the employer to the ABC plan itself, which acts as both administrative and investment fiduciary. For an HVAC shop owner who does not want to spend time vetting recordkeepers or defending fund lineups, that is a significant reduction in legal risk and administrative hassle.
Fiduciary Consulting Group leads the plan and works with ABC chapters and member contractors on design and enrollment. Transparent pricing is a core selling point: no indirect fees, no revenue sharing, and no setup fees for ABC members, with the plan leveraging aggregated member buying power to negotiate institutional investment share classes. Adopting employers can still customize match formulas, choose between traditional enrollment or automatic enrollment with progressive savings escalation, and bolt on profit-sharing contributions as the shop grows. Because it is a MEP, most adopting HVAC contractors avoid the individual plan audit that usually triggers around 100 participants, which saves meaningful money and hassle.
The ABC Insurance Trust also endorses The Contractors Plan as a complementary offering for members with Davis-Bacon exposure, so an HVAC contractor can use ABC Retirement & Savings for its general workforce and layer The Contractors Plan for prevailing-wage jobs. Given ABC's heavy chapter footprint in the Sun Belt and industrial construction corridors, adoption is particularly common among mechanical contractors doing mixed commercial and industrial HVAC work.