Retirement Confidence Ebbs
Defined Contribution Participant Perspectives: Second in a Series With (generally) frothy equity values, sizzling GDP growth, improving labor force participation rates and buoyant participant economic attitudes, DC participants should be cruising into a golden age of confidence and engagement. It may be coming, but we haven’t seen it yet. On the contrary, the same participants […]
Read more...Happy Days are Here Again (?)
Defined Contribution Participant Perspectives: First in a Series When it comes to the big economic picture, active DC participants today are happier and more secure than at any point in the seven-year history of these measurements. The proportion of participants expecting a recession has declined steadily over the years; at 16% this level is about […]
Read more...Service Model Stasis?
Topics in 401(k) Distribution: Second in a Series Advisors are about equally likely to recommend each of three service models tested in Retirement Services Intermediaries (RSI) studies: the traditional completely bundled service model (think Fidelity or Principal, 63%); the TPA interface service model (think John Hancock or Nationwide, 55%) and what we call a completely […]
Read more...Do Medium Advisors Deserve More Respect?
Topics in 401(k) Distribution: First in a Series For almost as long as Brightwork has segmented 401(k) advisors by the share of their practice income deriving from 401(k), providers have ignored Medium advisors (20% to < 60% of income, 29% of advisors) and focused instead on 401(k) specialists, or Heavy advisors (60% or more, 27% […]
Read more...Graduating to Higher Ed, the New Focus of 403(b) Advisors
Topics in 403(b) Distribution: Third in a Series To the litany of 403(b) advisor transformation over the past five years add shifting plan sponsor focus. As occasional 403(b) advisors have been displaced by more committed practitioners and retail clients have been displaced by institutional clients, so too have 403(b) advisors reordered their prospecting priorities. The […]
Read more...Losing Lights: 403(b) Distribution Gets More Serious
Topics in 403(b) Distribution: Second in a Series Five years ago the 403(b) distribution channel resembled 401(k) in that about half the advisors were “occasionalists” (Lights in our parlance) and about a quarter were specialists or Heavies. Transitional or Medium advisors made up about a quarter of both the 401(k) and 403(b) channels. Those proportions […]
Read more...Vanishing Distinction: 403(b) Advisors Take on Other DC
Topics in 403(b) Distribution: first in a series 401(k) advisors troll the for-profit ponds while 403(b) advisors cast their lines into not-for-profit waters, right? Well, not exactly. Updating our seminal 2012 study of advisors who sell 403(b) plans, we once again find that 403(b)-active advisors actually derive a significantly greater share of their income from […]
Read more...The Elusive Value Add of Practice Support
Topics in 401(k) Distribution: ninth in a series Providers often focus on practice support as a strategy to attract, retain or deepen relationships with advisors. Advisors often take a jaded view of these initiatives, not least because there are so many of them out there. We use the term broadly to cover everything from practice […]
Read more...Preferred Provider Programs: Beyond Compensation?
Focus on Retirement Plan TPAs Institutional retirement services firms that partner with local and regional TPA firms have long used preferred provider programs to attract and build loyalty among the most attractive TPAs. Do TPAs care? Which program components do TPAs value most—and least? Our new New Brightwork research shows that TPAs in fact do […]
Read more...Measuring Plan Effectiveness
Topics in 401(k) Distribution: eighth in a series When plan sponsors, providers and advisors talk about plan health or plan effectiveness, what’s driving their view? Is it familiar, conventional plan metrics, participant outcomes or some blend of the two? Over three research waves since 2012 we’ve seen a fairly stable blend of both perspectives with […]
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