TPA IT Built to Pass Your Next Plan Sponsor Review
Third-party administrators operate in a high-trust environment where security isn’t a feature — it’s the expectation. Participant data, fiduciary responsibility, and Department of Labor scrutiny all land on your IT. We deliver enterprise-grade protection with the documentation to prove it.
Controls aligned to DOL cybersecurity guidance, ERISA fiduciary standards, and NIST CSF 2.0, with audit-ready documentation built for SOC 1 (SSAE 18) examinations, CEFEX reviews, and Plan Sponsor questionnaires — so security scrutiny becomes routine, not a scramble.
From an actuarial and pension consulting firm — an excerpt, word for word
They keep everything monitored and secure behind the scenes, and whenever we need something, they’re always there — often going above and beyond to help.
A dedicated brand for the TPA industry
We know this vertical well enough to give it its own home. TPAIT® is our dedicated brand for third-party administrators and retirement-plan providers, with resources built specifically for fiduciary firms — delivered on the same CRC Cloud platform you’ll read about here. Explore it at tpait.com →
Operational continuity through every filing season
Plan Sponsors and auditors don’t just ask whether you back up data — they ask how fast you recover and how little you’d lose. We answer both with defined targets. Your Recovery Time Objective (RTO) is how quickly you’re operating again; your Recovery Point Objective (RPO) is the maximum data you can afford to lose.
We host participant data in a U.S.-based private cloud on infrastructure we own and keep encrypted backup, billed at published rates, with the most recent 30 days locked. We test failover every year — on the disaster recovery included for hosted environments, and on Rapid recovery at the published $175 per server plus $75 per TB a month — so RTO and RPO are proven, not promised.
- Defined, tested RTO/RPO targets documented for Plan Sponsor due diligence
- Encrypted backups, with the most recent 30 days locked, in a U.S. datacenter held to published standards
- Annual failover testing, on included disaster recovery and on Rapid recovery — recovery verified, not assumed
The controls a TPA is expected to run
Aligned to DOL cybersecurity guidance and NIST CSF 2.0’s Govern, Identify, Protect, Detect, Respond, and Recover functions:
| The expectation | What we put in place |
|---|---|
| Identify & assess risk | Risk and identity assessments against NIST CSF 2.0, ERISA fiduciary standards, and Plan Sponsor expectations, with documented findings |
| Protect participant data | MFA, encryption, endpoint detection and response, network segmentation, and role-based access controls |
| Detect threats continuously | 24/7 monitoring, SIEM log correlation, and dark-web monitoring for exposed credentials |
| Respond to incidents | Managed detection and response plus a written, tested incident-response plan — ready before the bad day |
| Recover operations | Encrypted backups with the most recent 30 days locked, and Rapid recovery with a 4-hour target and a 1-hour recovery point, billed at published rates, plus disaster recovery included for hosted environments |
| Govern & evidence it all | Audit-ready documentation so Plan Sponsor questionnaires, SOC 1 (SSAE 18) examinations, and CEFEX reviews become routine |
Our infrastructure runs in a Southern California facility engineered to a concurrently maintainable design, whose operator holds SOC 1 and SOC 2 Type II attestations, ISO 27001 and PCI-DSS certifications and NIST 800-53 (PE) High alignment, with N+1 redundant power and cooling. The 99.9% uptime service level on hosted systems is a CRC Cloud commitment. See our data centers → How we map to the DOL’s guidance, item by item: DOL cybersecurity guidance → Facing a service-organization audit? SOC 2 & SOC 1 readiness →
Participant data is exactly what attackers hope goes unwatched
Retirement accounts concentrate identities, balances, and trust in one place. The DOL didn’t publish cybersecurity guidance for fun — the numbers explain the urgency.
$11.5M
average cost of a U.S. data breach — a record high
IBM Cost of a Data Breach 2026247
days — average time to identify and contain a breach, across all organizations studied
IBM Cost of a Data Breach 202626%
of small-business breaches start with an exploited vulnerability — the most common way in
Verizon DBIR 2026A 247-day quiet intrusion is a fiduciary nightmare. Secure IT is built to close that window with a 24/7 SOC and managed detection and response. See how Secure IT responds →
How our plans fit a third-party administrator
Two plans, and a hosting decision on top. A plan service provider handling participant data starts on Secure IT, which contains everything in Core IT — $250 per user, or $275 with the published +10% DOL cybersecurity uplift. Cloud Complete adds our private cloud on top of it — $300 per user (Secure IT $250 plus a $50 shared hosted desktop) before the uplift.
| What you need | Core IT $125 not available under DOL cybersecurity guidance |
Secure IT $250 | Cloud Complete $300 Secure IT + hosting |
|---|---|---|---|
| Helpdesk, 24/7 monitoring, patching, EDR, MFA, encryption | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Risk assessments & documented, audit-ready controls | — | ✓ | ✓ with Secure IT |
| 24/7 SOC, managed detection & response, SIEM correlation | — | ✓ | ✓ with Secure IT |
| Dark-web monitoring for credentials & domain | — | ✓ | ✓ with Secure IT |
| Participant data hosted in our U.S.-based private cloud | — | — | ✓ |
| Disaster recovery from our second site (backup and Rapid recovery billed at published rates) | — | — | ✓ |
Core IT is shown for comparison only. A plan service provider handling participant data starts on Secure IT — the DOL guidance leans on the monitored layer it adds. We do not sell the $125 plan into a regulated environment.
Not sure which fits? The free assessment tells you honestly. Internal IT already in place? Co-Managed IT adds the security depth without replacing your team. See every published rate →
Related industries we serve
Payroll, benefits, actuarial, and accounting firms share the same fiduciary-grade data-protection pressures. Explore the rest of our industry playbooks, or see how we serve accounting & CPA firms, law firms, and nonprofits.
FAQ
How does CRC Cloud align with DOL cybersecurity guidance for retirement plans?
The Department of Labor expects retirement-plan providers to run a formal cybersecurity program: risk assessments, strong access controls, encryption, monitoring, tested backups, and documented incident response. We deliver those controls and map them to the DOL’s guidance and to NIST CSF 2.0, so when a Plan Sponsor asks how participant data is protected, you have real answers and the records to back them.
Can you help us pass a Plan Sponsor security review or questionnaire?
Yes. Plan Sponsor questionnaires ask about MFA, encryption, backups, monitoring, staff training, and incident response — the exact controls we implement and document. We keep audit-ready records so completing these reviews becomes routine rather than a fire drill, and we can speak to the technical answers directly if needed.
What RTO and RPO can you support for our filing seasons?
We design recovery around your tolerances. Recovery Time Objective (RTO) is how fast you’re operating again; Recovery Point Objective (RPO) is how little data you can afford to lose. Hosted environments get disaster recovery included, with an 8-hour recovery target; Rapid recovery, billed at published rates, copies each server every hour with a 4-hour target. Both are proven with a documented failover test every year rather than assumed, and both are targets, not guarantees.
Do you coordinate with our plan-administration and recordkeeping software?
Yes. We work directly with plan-administration platforms, recordkeepers, and actuarial systems, keeping the data flows secure and cutting out the finger-pointing that happens when software vendors, connectivity, and IT are managed by different hands. One accountable partner for the whole stack.
Does CRC Cloud have dedicated resources for the TPA industry?
Yes. We run a dedicated brand for third-party administrators, TPAIT®, with resources built specifically for retirement-plan providers and fiduciary firms. You can explore it at tpait.com. The underlying IT, cybersecurity, and private-cloud delivery is the same CRC Cloud platform, tuned to the TPA world.
What does it cost and how are we billed?
Published, per-user pricing. A plan service provider handling participant data starts on Secure IT: $250 per user per month for complete managed IT plus a 24/7 Security Operations Center, or $275 with the published +10% DOL cybersecurity uplift. Cloud Complete adds a hosted desktop on top of Secure IT at its flat published rate — $50 shared or $85 dedicated per user, not uplifted. Hosted servers, storage and backup are separate published lines. One-year initial term, then month-to-month with 60 days’ notice: no fee to leave after the initial term, and never an offboarding fee.
Priced openly, like everything else we do. DOL cybersecurity program work carries a published uplift of +10% on the per-user plan and per-server management fee — documentation, evidence and up to 8 hours a year for your auditor’s questions and meetings are real recurring hours, so we price them instead of hiding them in a quote. Secure IT is the starting point for compliance work — Core IT is not an option for a regulated environment, because the frameworks lean on the monitored layer Secure IT adds. On Secure IT that is $275 per user per month. Backup, private cloud resources and add-ons stay at their flat published rates. See the full compliance uplift table →
