Automatic 401(k) Best Practices: What Works and Why. Presentation by: Pete Chandler FINRA, Investor Education

Transcription

1 Automatic 401(k) Best Practices: What Works and Why Presentation by: Pete Chandler FINRA, Investor Education 1

2 Today s Topics Trends and Research Best Practices Putting it all together: Case Study 2

3 Increasing Participation Rates Best Practice: Automatic enrollment New employees hired under automatic enrollment designs have participation rates dramatically higher than employees hired under voluntary enrollment designs (86% vs 45%). Measuring the Effectiveness of Automatic Enrollment, Vanguard Center for Retirement Research Particularly beneficial for those least likely to participate in a 401(k) plan: women, minorities, and low-income workers. 3

4 Did You Know 52% of the employers have an auto-enrollment feature a 10% increase over % of employers are considering adding an auto-enrollment feature. 4

5 Auto-enrollment gains momentum Source: Hewitt Associates 5

6 Recent Trends Total 401(k) plans on the market increased by more than 20,000 in 2008 (SPARK, Society of Professional Asset-Managers and Record Keepers ) Over five million new participants added, an increase of 7.6% (SPARK) This uptick in participants can be attributed, in part, to more employers using automatic enrollment and other auto features with their 401(k) plans, Bob Wuelfing, president of SPARK 6

7 Recent Trends Vanguard 2008 How America Saves: Vanguard saw a quadrupling of automatic enrollment from One-third of Vanguard's total participant population has automatic enrollment. Of those, two-thirds now feature automatic annual increases in savings rates, up from one-third in

8 Recent Trends Vanguard s auto-enroll plans had an overall participation rate of 84% in 2008 compared with 60% for plans with voluntary enrollment. Even if automatically enrolled participants experienced lower returns in 2008 because of the market volatility, at least they were saving some money toward their future. (Vanguard researcher Jean Young) 8

9 Recent Trends President announces new initiatives that complement major legislative proposals to boost participation in IRAs and match retirement savings including automatic enrollment. We know that automatic enrollment has made a big difference in participation rates by making it simpler for workers to save and that s why we re going to expand it to more people. President Obama 9

10 Automatic Enrollment is Gaining Momentum 41% of 401(k) plans with more than 5,000 participants have adopted automatic enrollment. 31% of plans with participants have adopted automatic enrollment compared to 19 percent the previous year. 31% of plans with 1,000-4,999 participants have adopted automatic enrollment compared to 24 percent the previous year. Source: Profit Sharing/401k Council of America 10

11 Automatic Enrollment: Why It Works Uses inertia in a POSITIVE way requiring action to optout instead of opt in Confirmed again and again by behavior finance studies Affirmed by companies that have automatic enrollment E.g FINRA/AARP 11

12 Increasing Participation Rates Among Women A new study of more than 10,000 Americans conducted by Porter Novelli ConsumerStyles on behalf of RMS found: 58% of employed men participate in a 401(k) retirement savings plan vs 49% of employed women For women earning less than $50,000 a year only 38% contribute Best Practice: Automatic enrollment can dramatically improve participation rates among low-participation employee groups 12

13 Reaching Low-Participation Employees 13

14 Increasing Confidence in Ability to Invest and Loyalty to Employer Best Practices: Auto-enrollment and escalation Confidence and loyalty are higher in employees who are automatically enrolled: 58% feel more confident (vs. 54%) 62% feel more loyalty toward company (vs. 53%) And even higher for those enrolled in auto-escalation: 61% feel more confident (vs. 54%) 68% feel more loyalty toward company (vs. 68%) 14

15 Enrollment Best Practice: Apply automatic enrollment to existing employees AND new hires. Results in higher participation rates Minimal push back from employees Recaptures employees who opted out or dropped out in

16 Enrollment Keep in mind: Roughly a quarter of employees eligible to participate in a 401(k) DO NOT! 16

17 Best Practices: Enrollment of Non- Participants Automatic enrollment can cut non-participation rates from roughly 25% to 5-10% of eligible employees in an average plan. Good practice: Extend to non-participants once every two to three years Best practice: Exend it to non-participants EVERY YEAR. Any given year may be the right place at the right time for a given employee 17

18 Best Practices: Enrollment of Non- Participants Any given year may be the right place at the right time for an employee. 18

19 So What do employees think about automatic enrollment? RMS Study conducted by Harris Interactive October, ,130 adults, 696 who were automatically enrolled in a 401(k) plan 48 who opted out 19

20 What Do Employees Think? Question: How satisfied were you with the process of being automatically enrolled? Satisfied (Net): 97% Very Satisfied: 74% Somewhat Satisfied: 23% 20

21 What Do Employees Think? Question: How satisfied were you with the process of being automatically enrolled? But opted out Satisfied (Net): 90% Very Satisfied: 57% Somewhat Satisfied: 33% 21

22 What Do Employees Think? Automatic enrollment has allowed you to start saving for retirement earlier than planned. Agree (net) 85% Strongly Agree 62% Somewhat Agree 23% Disagree (net) 14% Somewhat Disagree 8% Strongly Disagree 6% 22

23 What Do Employees Think? Automatic enrollment has made saving for retirement easy. Agree (net) 95% Strongly Agree 71% Somewhat Agree 24% Disagree (net) 5% Somewhat Disagree 3% Strongly Disagree 2% 23

24 What Do Employees Think? You are glad your company offers Automatic enrollment. Agree (net) 98% Strongly Agree 79% Somewhat Agree 19% Disagree (net) 2% Somewhat Disagree 1% Strongly Disagree *% 24

25 What s the Take Away? Big Brother fears generally unfounded Employee backlash rare Employees overwhelming like it 25

26 Default Contributions 26

27 Default Contributions Best Practice: Aim higher than the average of 3% At a minimum, consider setting it at maximum percentage you match Set deferral rate to increase automatically each year What plan administrators recommend: Better to roll out aggressive deferral rates and increases all at once (e.g. 6% with annual increases to 10%) 27

28 Default Investments Best Practice: Default to option that allows for long-term asset growth that can outpace inflation Regulations accommodate diversified default investment alternatives that seek both long-term appreciation and capital preservation as the employee ages Lifecycle and balanced funds that offer equity exposure offer hedges against inflation risk 28

29 Automatic Escalation Automatic enrollment at average 3% may not be enough to help employees reach retirement savings goals. Consider this: A 35 year-old with no current retirement savings earns $50,000. She saves 3% of salary each year, and his employer matches half of that. She will need an estimated $1.3 million saved to support her retirement. At a static 3% a year, she d fall short by more than $800,

30 Automatic Escalation Best Practice: Don t stop escalation at company match Plan sponsors typically choose to raise the annual contribution rate by 1% a year, up to the maximum they set in the plan or up to the company match A best practice is to escalate until an employee reaches 9%-12% of pay 30

31 Best Practices: Automatic Rebalancing Only 17% of participants make fund transfers in a given year. Automatic rebalancing where it doesn t otherwise occur helps ensure that a participant remains on track with target allocations. Target retirement date and lifecycle funds typically rebalance as a function of their design, which makes them obvious choices for implementing automatic rebalancing. 31

32 Investor Education Automation should be accompanied by EDUCATION. More employees are apt to be engaged in the message because they have money invested Challenge them: Are you saving enough? 32

33 Investor Education Best Practice: Personalize Participation status, income level, primary language Provide resources and tools 33

34 Investor Education Best Practices: Create year-round programs that use multiple communication channels. Posters, voice messaging, , home mailings, seminars, asset allocation tools and more While surveys document the common refrain of, Tell me what to do frame this information in terms of important fundamental investment concepts of risk, reward, time value of money. The most important advice is save early and as much as an employee can. 34

35 Putting It All Together: Company Success Story 2003: Company worked with provider with experience implementing auto 401(k)s 2004: Auto-enroll all new non-union employees 2006: Educated eligible employees who weren t participating Mailed letters detailing the automatic 401(k) process. Enrolled at a 4% (to take advantage of full company match) in a lifecycle fund 35

36 Putting It All Together: Company Success Story Union Workers Evraz negotiated through their bargaining unit Union accepted an automatic 401(k) plan as long as it included an opt-out feature. Set the savings rate at two percent with a one percent match. 36

37 Putting It All Together: Company Success Story Results: Participation grew substantially From 50% to 97% for non-union From 40% to 70% for union workers Employee feedback overwhelmingly positive Administration costs remained the same as pre-automatic enrollment days 37