RETIREMENT PLANS Gold Monitor Awards 2015 Award Winners
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Retirement Plan Monitor Awards Welcome to the third annual Retirement Plan Monitor Awards slide deck. These awards highlight the best retirement resources and features that lead the online defined contribution plan participant experience. This year, we distribute awards in eight categories: Participant Homepage, Online Documentation, Educational Resources, Tools and Calculators, Participant Plan Data, Transaction Capabilities, Online Customer Service and Mobile Participant Experience. Within each category, we award a gold, silver or bronze medal based on how well firms meet our criteria. The Gold medal is reserved for capabilities that offer an exceptionally valuable and comprehensive service to customers in a user-friendly, well-designed interface. We award a Silver medal for functionality that offers strong capabilities while suffering from a few small flaws. Finally, a Bronze medal goes to features that, though imperfect, offer participants an excellent or uniquely valuable service. TIAA-CREF T. Rowe Price The Principal Fidelity Vanguard Merrill Lynch Empower - Wells Fargo Empower - Empower - Prudential Voya Financial VALIC Bronze Silver Gold 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 Medal Count
Category Overview Participant Homepage Participant Plan Data Online Documentation Transaction Capabilities Educational Resources Online Customer Service Tools and Calculators Mobile Capabilities Promote Your Firm s 2015 Gold Monitor Awards! Corporate Insight is happy to assist all Gold Monitor Award winning firms in promoting their honors. For more information and to see examples of past promotions, contact us at PR@Corporateinsight.com.
Participant Homepage The homepage is the first place plan participants form an impression of their plan provider. As such, it is essential for firms to provide a well-balanced, attractive homepage that incorporates a solid selection of account data, resources and links to key site functionality. We evaluated firms on the quality of several criteria, including homepage design, account information, on-page resources, quick link availability and marketing and promotion. TIAA-CREF earns the gold medal for a second consecutive year in the participant homepage category. The firm improved its already-impressive homepage by incorporating a cleaner and more efficient layout and adding a retirement income projection section. The firm continues to provide a robust selection of plan data and key resource quick links efficiently through expandable sections and intra-page tabs. Wells Fargo, a newcomer to the Participant Homepage podium, earns the gold this year largely due to its best-inclass page design that allows participants to customize which account modules appear and how they are presented on the homepage. Wells Fargo participants can view a variety of account details on the homepage, including personal rate of return details, account history, asset allocations and fundlevel performance.
Online Documentation While account statements are the most crucial plan document, other documentation, including tax documents, transaction confirmations and regulatory messaging, is also important for participants and should be readily available online. Firms should provide dynamic statement tools that allow participants to generate on-demand statements and/or statements for custom timeframes. We evaluated firms based on accessibility, type of documents available, on-demand statement functionality, depth of archive, format and printability and delivery preferences. J.P. Morgan earns the gold medal in the Online Documentation category for the second consecutive year. The firm provides an extensive selection of online documents that includes on-demand statements and quarterly statements coupled with transaction confirmations, tax documents, plan notices and investment literature. The site archives statements for the life of the plan. After receiving a silver medal last year, T. Rowe Price earns the gold this year, largely due to the improved presentation and accessibility of documents on the recently revamped website. The firm provides a well-organized Statements & Documents page that centralizes all documents including quarterly statements, which the firm archives for seven years. The statement may be customized with up to three additional modules and may take up to three days to obtain.
Educational Resources Financial literacy with retirement concepts is essential to success in retirement planning. We examined the resources that retirement plan firms provide to educate plan participants on key retirement-related concepts. Websites were evaluated based on depth and breadth of content, quality of resources, content format, accessibility and organization. Fidelity receives the gold medal for a third consecutive year for continuing to provide DC plan participants with a robust education center, easily accessible from the dedicated Library main menu tab. The Library organizes content according to skill level, format, and topic and offers resources across a variety of media, including articles, videos, podcasts and webinars. The Principal Financial Group earns its first gold with the firm s significantly enhanced online retirement participant education content. The firm introduced a new Education Hub to the Retirement Planning tab that, in addition to housing existing content, provides a new monthly webinar series and a unique My Virtual Coach retirement planning educational tool that presents users with a personalized and interactive educational experience. The firm provides a well-organized Article Library, a variety of online seminars and a unique retirement countdown feature. Vanguard joins Fidelity and the Principal at the top of the podium this year after earning a silver the previous two years. The firm bolstered an already impressive collection of educational resources by adding a suite of lessons that provide a more interactive approach to retirement education. Each lesson leads users through a series of steps that include a variety of content mediums (e.g., text, videos, etc.) and allows users to save their progress and continue where they left off at a later time.
Tools and Calculators Retirement-focused tools and calculators can help participants accomplish any number of tasks, ranging from providing retirement income estimates to determining the take-home pay impact of changing the deferral rate. While a thorough retirement planner is the most important tool to offer, providers should offer a full suite of online resources that help participants gain a thorough understanding of their financial situations. We rewarded firms that offer both comprehensive retirement planners that import account data and provide actionable suggestions as well as basic calculators that help participants accomplish specific tasks. Fidelity receives its third consecutive gold in the Tools and Calculators category. Although the firm removed multiple effective resources, including the comprehensive Portfolio Review multigoal planner, from the participant site this year, the addition of the best-in-class Planning & Guidance Center tool was sufficient to maintain the firm s gold status. The firm houses a well-rounded selection of intuitive tools, including a Roth 401(k) Modeler, Contribution Calculator and Savings and Spending Check-Up tool. TIAA-CREF earns gold for the first time for offering one of the most well-rounded suites of online tools and calculators and its significantly updated Retirement Advisor tool. The Retirement Advisor tool provides customized strategy and portfolio recommendations and allows participants to implement the recommendations directly from the tool. The firm provides four intuitive retirement tools of varying complexities along with a selection of non-retirement-focused resources.
Participant Plan Data A firm understanding of account balances, contribution information, holdings and performance is essential to success in retirement planning. In this category we examined the information and organizational structure that retirement plan providers offer participants to inform them about their retirement account. Websites were evaluated on accessibility, depth of balance detail, depth of contributions information, breadth of holdings information, performance reporting quality, account history data and more. Vanguard earns its second consecutive gold in the Participant Plan Data category. The firm provides participants with an excellent assortment of plan investment data coupled with an extensive account history archive. The firm provides an effective selection of balance and asset allocation details and robust performance reporting capabilities. Vanguard also features a variety of data directly on the participant homepage and provides easy access to data via clear main menu options and homepage quick links.
Transaction Capabilities Participants ability to conduct transactions online instead of through a plan sponsor or intermediary is vital to the online experience. Accordingly, firms must provide plan participants with the capability to conduct a variety of common transactions online, such as change the contribution rate, rebalance the portfolio, change investments and take a loan or early withdrawal. TIAA-CREF earns a gold medal in the Transaction Capabilities category for the second consecutive year. The firm allows participants to conduct all major plan transactions online through the easily accessible Manage My Portfolio main menu tab. Transaction interfaces offer flyouts of fund fact sheets and display all relevant information. The Manage Investments overview provides brief descriptions of the transactions. Further help appears on transaction interfaces, including links to a Target Investment Mix Questionnaire and dynamically updating pie charts reflecting the chosen investment changes when applicable.
Online Customer Service Retirement plan providers should offer multiple online customer service contact features, such as a secure message center, email form or live chat tool to enable participants to obtain the help regarding their account or the website quickly and efficiently. Online features such as dedicated Help pages or FAQs offer further assistance to participants. TIAA-CREF earns a gold medal for the second year for providing an excellent customer service email platform and message center, extensive contact info and a robust selection of online help resources. Participants can draft, send and receive messages as well as upload files to process transactions or account changes. Well-integrated FAQs open in separate windows and include videos and demos. Balloon tips appear throughout the site.
Mobile Participant Experience Mobile accessibility has become a crucial component of the overall retirement plan customer experience. The increased reliance on mobile over desktop computing places a significant emphasis on a highly usable mobile platform. In this category we examined the overall mobile experience provided to participants and specifically rewarded firms for providing an optimized experience to both phone and tablet users. There were no gold winners for the mobile participant experience category. In the first year of the Mobile Participant Experience award, Fidelity, T. Rowe Price and Vanguard all earn silver awards. Each firm provides DC plan participants with an effective overall mobile experience that consists of phone app, tablet app and mobile website access to their retirement plan data. Each firm takes a different approach to the overall mobile experience; however, each firms suffers from at least one significant flaw, preventing any from attaining gold.
2015 Top Gold Medal Winners TIAA-CREF Fidelity Vanguard 4 2 2 2 3 In the 2015 Retirement Plan Monitor Awards, TIAA-CREF leads with four gold medals, followed by Fidelity and Vanguard with two gold medals each.
Contact Us Andrew Way Senior Analyst Retirement Plan Monitor and Retirement Plan Monitor-Institutional 646-751-6975 Away@corporateinsight.com Connect with Drew Connect With CI