2025 3(38) Investment Manager Survey
The PLANSPONSOR Outsourced Investment Manager Survey gives a view of defined contribution retirement plan sponsors’ use of ERISA 3(38) investment managers, the types of plans using these investment fiduciaries, their reasons for using them and factors they look at when selecting one.
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2025 PLANSPONSOR 403(b) Market Survey
403(b) plans are in many ways the same as traditional corporate 401(k) plans, but they also present unique challenges. The 403(b) Market Survey profiles the providers of these plans, noting the market segments each focuses on and the services it supplies to its 403(b) plan sponsor clients.
2025 Defined Benefit Administration Survey
Like our Recordkeeping Survey on the defined contribution side of the retirement plan market, the Defined Benefit Administration Survey showcases providers on the DB side: who the major players are, whom they serve and what services they provide. It includes information on the size of the overall DB plan market.
2025 DC Survey: Plan Benchmarking
The Defined Contribution Plan Benchmarking report comprises data from the thousands of DC plan sponsors that responded to our annual DC Survey. The bellwether for industry benchmarking on plan design and administration, it’s a study in contrasts, demonstrating some surprising similarities among plans of different sizes.
2025 DC Survey: Plan Provider Service Ratings
Drawn from our annual survey of defined contribution plan sponsors, the industry benchmark for rating DC plan providers, these listings reflect clients’ Top 5 provider choices in a range of categories—services and support, recordkeeping platform, plan administration, and investments and fees—for six sizes of plans, by assets.
2024 Newport / PLANSPONSOR NQDC Plan Trends Survey
PLANSPONSOR and retirement service provider Newport surveyed employers about their nonqualified deferred compensation plans. The data reveal trends in plan design, funding and administration, plus areas to improve. Among other findings: sponsors’ satisfaction with plan features and with plans’ ability to meet sponsor goals.
2025 PLANSPONSOR NQDC Market Survey
Nonqualified deferred compensation plans are under their own set of regulations and require their own expertise. Our NQDC Market Survey ranks this market’s providers, listing the top 10 by: total plans, per type; total participants; total liabilities; number of technical experts on staff; and more.
2025 PLANSPONSOR Participant Survey
The PLANSPONSOR Participant Survey examines the attitudes and behaviors of American workers participating—or not—in an employer-sponsored retirement plan. Besides gathering data about savings rates, employer expectations and confidence levels, etc., it asks what participants would really want if given a choice of employer offerings.
2025 Recordkeeping Survey
Complementing our Defined Contribution Survey, which measures DC clients’ satisfaction with their providers, our Recordkeeping Survey profiles 45 providers and notes the types of products and services each supplies. Containing numerous “Top 10” lists, the survey ranks each provider by total assets, participants and plans, per plan type.
2016 Third–Party Administrator Buyer’s Guide
Third Party Administrators, or TPA's, help employers manage their retirement plans. A retirement plan TPA will help you with the design and administration of your employee retirement plan, and also help you fulfill your employer tax obligations.
2016 Third-Party Administrator Survey
Third Party Administrator (or TPA) firms are hired by 401(k) plan sponsors to the run day-to-day aspects of retirement plans in lieu of a recordkeeper. The PLANSPONSOR Third Party Administrator Survey respondents represent more than 175,000 plan and 12.5 participants in various types of employer-sponsored retirement plans.
2014 Transition Management Survey
While there are not as many providers of portfolio transition management services as there are, say, defined contribution providers, this is an extremely competitive field and the stakes are high. The survey serves two purposes: first, to take the pulse of pensions and other institutional investors which use transition management; and second, to highlight all the providers in the field.
2013 TRO Buyer's Guide
Time was when a "bundled" solution could not be delivered efficiently or effectively unless all the parts came from the same entity—no more. This bundled concept has, for the last several years, been presented under the banner of Total Retirement Outsourcing, or TRO. The Buyer’s Guide presents the providers of TRO services—which types and sizes of clients they service, and products offered.