A level playing field: what new rules surrounding retirement investment advice mean for you.

• Position: SPONSORED SECTION: WEALTH MANAGEMENT

Early this year, the Department of Labor issued new rules requiring retirement investment brokers and advisers to meet a fiduciary standard. That is, advisers are now required to put their clients' best interests before their own financial gain. How significant is this change for the industry--and for individual investors?

Well, according to analysis from the President's Council of Economic Advisers, "Working and middle class families receiving conflicted advice earn returns roughly 1 percentage point lower each year." And, the council found, that can add up to tens of thousands of dollars of lifetime retirement savings for a typical middle-class family. The aggregate annual cost of conflicted advice is about $17 billion each year.

But what, exactly, does it mean to be a fiduciary? According to the Department of Labor, retirement investment advisers who are acting as a fiduciary "are required to act impartially and provide advice that is in their clients' best interest. In addition, fiduciaries to plans, plan participants, and IRA owners are not permitted to receive payments creating conflicts of interest unless they comply with conditions ... designed to minimize the potential effects of a conflict."

Previously, advisers were only required to suggest products that were "suitable" for their clients. Conflicts could arise when an adviser could get paid more for steering clients into certain investment products--which may have been entirely "suitable" for the client, but not necessarily in their best financial interest.

The Department of Labor says the...