Retirement Plan Providers Can Get Plan Sponsor Website Audit

Corporate Insight announced the launch of its Defined Contribution (DC) Plan Sponsor Digital Audit.

The new audit service provides an in-depth assessment of the digital user experience offered by retirement plan recordkeepers to plan sponsors, measuring their plan sponsor-facing websites against key competitors. The audit identifies competitive strengths, weaknesses and opportunities for improvement, enabling recordkeepers to set the right development priorities and deliver a best-in-class digital experience to sponsors.

Six core categories are featured:

• Education and Help Resources;
• Participant Data & Management;
• Plan Administration;
• Plan Information;
• Reporting; and
• Website Design and Settings

The audit framework, grade definitions and criteria are based on industry best practices identified by Corporate Insight’s Retirement Plan Monitor—Institutional research service, which tracks and analyzes the plan sponsor websites of 15 leading recordkeepers. Its latest survey found 91% of plan sponsors say that the site experience is either of equal or greater importance to the participant site experience.

Andrew Way, director of research, annuity, life and retirement at Corporate Insight, says recordkeepers have put far more work into updating participant websites than they have sponsor websites. “Sponsors hold these websites up to the high quality service they get from non-financial websites, such as Google. If [recordkeepers] don’t offer an intuitive plan health dashboard or haven’t updated it in a few years, they need to do so.”

“When it comes to digital platform importance, our survey found that the quality of the plan sponsor portal can have a greater impact on the choice of recordkeeper than the quality of the participant digital experience,” says Michael Ellison, president of Corporate Insight. “We believe that this audit can play an instrumental role in helping clients optimize their plan sponsor digital experience, leading to greater client retention.”