Plan Sponsors Sticking With Providers
According to PLANSPONSOR’s seventh annual Defined Contribution Survey , a surprisingly robust 40% have been with their current providers for five years or more, and nearly 21% have been with their providers for three to five years.
Nearly all say they would recommend their current defined contribution provider to a colleague and, while that sentiment paled a tad compared with a year ago, it remained largely unchanged despite the increase in survey respondents (a record 3,246). Still, more than a quarter say they plan on issuing a Request for Proposal (RFP) or reevaluating their provider in the next yearalthough only 16% say they formally make that evaluation on an annual basis.
While more than half say it will be more than a year before they reconsider, a comparable 58% say they only formally evaluate their defined contribution providers “as necessary.” Only about 38% of this year’s respondents say they use a consultant for their retirement program, aside from their specific providera reading down somewhat from the 43% in last year’s survey, which itself marked a continuing downtrend.
Not too surprisingly, while roughly half of the programs with more than $50 million in assets used an outside consultant, less than a third of those with less than $5 million in assets did so.