Participants June 12, 2017

PSNC 2017: Financial Wellness – Holistic Education Programs

The panel compared utilizing different financial wellness tactics with general financial education, ROI and more.
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Homing in on the term “financial wellness,” a Day Two panel at the PLANSPONSOR National Conference, in Washington, D.C., discussed well-rounded programs and how plan sponsors can offer holistic materials and value to participants—beyond just education.

Live polling from the audience revealed that most plan sponsors, at 53%, do not offer a specific financial wellness program, beyond education, while 20% said they do offer one, and 27% disclosed they were considering implementing one.

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Bryan Burton, director of human resources (HR) for the North America region of Norican Group, and a panelist for the session, said his company focuses on financial concerns based on employee demographics. Because this region of Norican Group is mainly composed of blue-collar employees, Burton said, for many of them, retirement planning came last on their list of priorities.

“We would focus more on overarching financial issues, instead of just on their retirement plan,” he said.

Instead of providing general educational information, Burton said, his team introduced education on specific matters critical to a worker’s daily life, including debt management, paying for childcare, and how to establish a checking account, among others. At one point, Burton said he had reached out to a community specializing in financial wellness for Spanish-speaking employees, while also seeking help from advisers, Employee Assistance Program (EAP) plans and recordkeepers.

“It was important to us to really customize, and to target each group with what they wanted to know,” he said. “Once they had information, then they were open to see what the next step was. To build on that.”

Additionally, Burton’s team would invite spouses of workers to join financial wellness meetings, and on their own time. This, in turn, allowed Burton and his team to gather more data and feedback, which was helpful in understanding workers’ contribution rates and how, e.g., financial problems at home could be causing distractions on the job.

Currently, the North American region of Norican Group has a 93% participation rate, with a 9% average deferral rate.

Melissa Trimani, assistant vice president of product management at MassMutual Retirement Services, cited a recent study conducted by her company, in which 1,000 workers were surveyed on their main financial concerns. The study reported debt as the greatest and retirement as the least, with only 7% of workers citing it as a major concern.

Because of this, Michael Kane, managing director of Plan Sponsor Consultants, emphasized the importance of instilling financial wellness practices in a work force, instead of just handing out educational materials. “A lot of people mistake financial education for addressing financial wellness,” he said. “If I’m a person who has debt, you can educate me all you want, but I still don’t have the money.”

More specifically, Nathan Voris, managing director of strategy for Schwab Retirement Plan Services Inc., encouraged plan sponsors to focus on the quality of financial wellness programs, rather than quantity.

“The engagement strategies need to be action-oriented; reading a three-page article isn’t going to cut it,” he said. “Not new stuff—just a better way to engage with what we’ve been doing.”

He mentioned incorporating in-plan optimization, while Trimani followed up by telling employers, especially those sponsoring small plans, to find and work with a provider that can address employees’ needs. “If you marry up with the right provider, sometimes that’s really all your employees are looking for,” she said.

For employees who refuse to admit financial troubles, Burton suggested adding individual consultation appointments with third-party providers. For an extra confidential approach, sponsors can direct employees to EAPs, Burton said.

Or, as Kane suggested, a one-on-one phone call with a Certified Financial Planner (CFP) can encourage employees to be candid.

Voris also mentioned that his company implemented online chat rooms, to eliminate the risk of someone overhearing such a phone call.

 NEXT: Utilizing ROI can add to financial wellness 

While financial wellness tools are able to engage and drive employees to save for retirement, all four panelists suggested plan sponsors conduct a return on investment (ROI) to monitor specific behavioral modifications.

Trimani said, at MassMutual, taking into account specific data—e.g., the number of paid time off (PTO) days—and monitoring how different age groups such as Millennials and Generation Xers improve their participation and contribution rates are some methods for gauging behavioral changes.

The data pulled from ROIs not only points up the extent of the changes, but can interest the company’s chief financial officer (CFO), typically disengaged from the retirement plan and how it impacts employees. Plan sponsors can thereby gain opportunities to talk with the CFO about making overall improvements to the retirement plan, panelists agreed.

“You’re doing these kinds of things so you can see the move in metrics,” Kane said. “You have to have some type of aggregate reporting to see differences going on.”

Investing June 12, 2017

PSNC 2017: Retirement Income Products and Solutions

DC plan sponsors have been hesitant to adopt retirement income products and solutions, but changes may be coming to spur more innovation in the industry to address their concerns.
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At the start of the 2017 PLANSPONSOR National Conference panel on Retirement Income Products and Solutions, Barbara Delaney, principal, StoneStreet Advisor Group, and moderator of the panel, shared a chart showing that the ability to make sound financial decisions starts to decline at age 49 and precipitously declines through age 75. “We need to get people to make retirement income decisions while working,” she stressed.

However, defined contribution (DC) plan sponsors have been slow to adopt guaranteed income products for their plans. John Doyle, senior vice president, defined contribution strategist at American Funds from Capital Group, noted that the concern over fiduciary liability has been the biggest roadblock to adopting retirement income products or solutions. “Plan sponsors say, ‘We’re not supposed to be talking about guaranteed or insured products,’” he said. Plan sponsors are also worried about portability, he added. They worry that the solution will be stuck in the plan and the plan sponsor will be stuck with the recordkeeper. “It could put handcuffs on the plan sponsor and on participants. The solution may be to have out-of-plan options available,” Doyle said.

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Marty Menin, director – retirement solutions division at Pacific Life Insurance Co., said another issue is complexity. “If you think of all the different versions of retirement income—guaranteed minimum withdrawal benefits [GMWBs], qualified longevity annuity contracts [QLACs], regular annuities—there are some complex choices, but those of us in the insurance industry are working on these things,” he said. “Plan sponsors have to understand them, then have to teach employees about how they work. As the industry adds solutions and builds them, we imagine all the different things plan sponsors and participants have to understand and communicate.”

Bruce Lanser, senior retirement plan consultant at UBS Retirement Plan Consulting Group, noted that 30% of his firm’s clients have adopted GMWBs as an in-plan solution. “They are aware of the added responsibility and speedbumps such as portability, but they have the view that this is too important,” he said. Lanser explained that a GMWB is something somewhat simple for participants to grasp. Participants in defined benefit (DB) plans didn’t know interest rates and investment allocation, but they knew what they would get in retirement, and this is the same with a GMWB. Participants know they will have a benefit of “x” amount if retire in year “z.”

A plan sponsor in the audience shared that it took a different approach because it didn’t want an investment in the plan. The plan sponsor partnered with Financial Engines to offer its Income Plus product. It is not so much a guarantee, but Financial Engines works with participants on a draw-down rate and the purchase of an annuity at age 80.

NEXT: Changes coming due to DOL fiduciary rule

Lanser said there once was a concern about keeping participants in a DC plan for 20 or 30 years after leaving employment, but now there is a trend of plan sponsors wanting money to remain in the plan. The plan assets will grow and help in negotiating lower fees. There’s been a changing mindset.

Doyle expects that when the full fiduciary rule goes into effect, more people will stay in the plan whether they want to or not. But he warns that if a participant doesn’t feel he can handle finances in retirement and the employer doesn’t help, he may continue to work longer, which raises health care costs and lowers productivity for employers. “It makes a difference to the bottom line if you can help them retire, and that includes helping them be comfortable with being able to have an income stream in retirement,” he told conference attendees.

If participants keep their assets in the plan, maybe that will be the catalyst for someone to come up with a product for in-plan guaranteed income, Doyle speculated. “If participants stay in the plan, and the plan is designed for accumulation up to age 65, plan sponsors are not doing their fiduciary duty for all participants, i.e., those who are terminated,” he said.

He added, “I don’t think at any time in the near future it will be required to offer guaranteed income in the plan. One reason is the portability issue. Secondly, government mandates have not necessarily been proven to be taken well by employers. We’ve seen that with health care.”

NEXT: Innovative ideas

Menin said he is not sure there are any new and creative ideas for retirement income products and solutions, and the retirement plan industry needs new, creative ideas over the next few years. But people fail to understand some options already available. For example, he explained, one fear participants have of annuities is, if they get hit by a bus, they will lose the rest of their annuity. There are options such as a 20-year certain annuity, but no one understands that. “Participants want guaranteed lifetime income, but not annuities, so a gap exists between what people want and what the industry is offering. There is no collaborative effort between industry and individuals,” he said.

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has issued regulations allowing for retirement income products to be included in target-date funds (TDFs). “I think if they have guarantees in TDFs, the plan sponsor assumes they are defaulting participants into guarantees,” Doyle said. “Where I see guarantees coming into TDFs is as an option for participants, but we’ve seen that, when something is voluntary, people don’t use it. That is where it is important for advice and education.” He added that managed accounts and packaged products will start to meet people’s needs.

Lanser noted that if plan sponsors default participants to a GMWB 10 years before the end of the TDF end date, it changes behavior. Participants save more in the plan. In addition, he said, research shows participants are 3.5 times more likely to stay in investments during market downturns when they have a guarantee. They don’t do things that would be destructive to their savings.

Doyle advised a change in terminology from “retirement savings plan” to “retirement income plan” to change participants’ mindset.

And Lansing suggested that plan sponsors need details about guarantees and what is backing them, in order to monitor the investments. But with participants, they can simply explain what the product translates into for retirement income.

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