Securian Financial Group, Inc.

NOMINATOR COMMENTS

Given Securian’s history and business focus in helping its customers achieve financial security, it’s not surprising that Securian has taken great care in designing a benefit program for its own employees that helps them meet their own financial goals. Securian believes that both DC and DB plans serve an important role in providing total retirement income, and its DB plan is open to new hires. The DB plan is the cornerstone of Securian’s retirement program, providing a target of 35% replacement income for associates who spend their career at Securian. Beyond the DB plan, associates are encouraged to contribute to the 401(k) plan to save additional amounts for retirement. In addition to deferring their regular compensation, they can also elect to defer Securian’s annual profit-sharing bonus, which historically has averaged 7% of compensation. One-half of the profit-sharing is automatically contributed to participants’ 401(k) accounts, and associates can elect to defer the other half or receive it in cash. Nonqualified DC and DB programs are also available to certain eligible associates.

PLANSPONSOR: Please cite any noteworthy initiatives you have taken in the past 24 to 36 months that have produced results to improve your plan, and describe the results.

Securian: We made several enhancements to our retirement program in 2024, including a revamp of the 401(k) investment lineup, which also lowered overall investment expenses. In addition, we added the ability for associates to make separate deferral elections for base and incentive compensation. We also enhanced the process for associates to make deferral and beneficiary elections by allowing them to do so directly on the recordkeeper’s system, rather than on Securian’s HR system. Now all 401(k) actions can be made on a single system.

To show the value of the total retirement offering, Securian worked with its new provider to deliver a total retirement picture to associates, wrapping in DC and DB benefits, as well as NQDC and NQDB benefits, as applicable. The new participant website and mobile app landing page display a snapshot of all retirement benefits together in one view, along with a grand total. They also house new, interactive tools which were introduced to associates.

Year-to-date through September 30, 2024, 87% of active participants have engaged with the website and app. Participants were especially enthusiastic about the DB modeling tool, an online, dynamic application that allows associates to model DB benefits real-time at various retirement ages and even save them for later viewing if they want. Year-to-date through September 30, 2024, more than 7,000 DB modeling sessions were initiated by Securian associates.

In addition, the website dashboard uses a retirement wellness score to illustrate how all of Securian’s plans work together toward the participant’s retirement income goal and shows how close the associate is to reaching their goal. Participants can also model how changes to their savings rates, retirement age and investment strategy can help improve their score. More than 1,700 modeling sessions were initiated year-to-date through September 30, 2024, and associates that used it have an average deferral rate 3% higher than those who have not yet done so.

Additionally, from December 31, 2023, to September 30, 2024, overall 401(k) participation increased to 84% from 79%, and average deferral rates increased to 8.5% from 7.8%. As of September 30, 2024, 88% of associates were on track to replace at least 50% of their income at retirement, and 45% were on track to replace at least 70%.

PLANSPONSOR: What challenges do you face in plan administration or participant engagement?

Securian: While the DB plan is a material component of our retirement benefits, the plan has not been clearly understood by associates. Further, the DC plan design includes a profit-sharing contribution instead of a matching component and doesn’t use auto-enrollment, which can be a challenge for new employees to understand/appreciate when joining the company from employers with more common plan designs. Even though Securian is in the financial services industry, it has a diverse workforce—not all associates are investment or financial services experts.

To meet these challenges, Securian worked with Principal to develop a communication campaign and leverage technology to make it easier for associates to understand the retirement plans and better appreciate how they work together to provide a valuable retirement benefit.

This year, for our Plan Sponsor of the Year profiles, we are publishing Q&As based on the finalists’ applications and nominator comments. Responses are edited and may be paraphrased. In cases where the finalist self-nominated or, on its application, referred judges to the nomination for the answer, we have attributed those nominator answers to the plan sponsor.