The seven-member compensation committee is led by Dennis M. Bone, a former New Jersey president for Verizon Communications Inc. Robert C. Albanese, another committee member, and Bone both were directors at Roma Financial Corp. before it was acquired by Investors in 2013. Doreen R. Byrnes was previously Investor Bancorp’s head of human resources.

William Cosgrove, who led another bank prior to its 2008 acquisition by Investors Bancorp, was an employee through 2011. Cosgrove’s compensation includes as much as $27,740 in automobile allowances and club dues -- perks that are exceedingly rare for directors.

Investors Bancorp said in its filing that the committee worked with GK Partners, a compensation consulting firm, to create its pay plan. The board met 12 times, greater than the average eight meetings held by boards of companies in the S&P 500.

“They look at the role that they play in the company’s future, how they set the strategic direction,” Cama said of the consultants in a phone interview. “They also take into account aligning the directors’ interests with the shareholders’ interests.”

Regeneron’s Board

Regeneron’s board was the highest-paid among companies in the index, with an average $4.18 million to each director. That figure was skewed by Chairman Roy Vagelos, who became a billionaire on option awards he received at the company. He was paid $23.2 million last year, the drugmaker disclosed, while other directors received about $2 million each in option awards.

“The board includes two Nobel Prize winners and five members of the National Academy of Sciences,” Alexandra Bowie, a spokeswoman for Tarrytown, New York-based Regeneron, said in an e-mail. “Our compensation is primarily options-based because we believe this aligns board compensation to the creation of future shareholder value.”

At electric-car maker Tesla Motors Inc., directors were paid an average $6.34 million in 2015, almost entirely in stock options that “are issued once every three years and vest and are intended to compensate the directors over such three-year period,” according to its proxy. The board members “will not receive the same grants again prior to 2018,” the document shows.

$2.5 Million

Accounting for that award schedule, the directors have been paid an average of $2.5 million in each of the last three years, making its directors the third-best-paid in the index last year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.