What Site Features Do DC Participants Value Most?

Defined contribution plan participants most value account balance information, security settings and privacy preferences among recordkeeping website features, according to Corporate Insight Inc.’s “2025 DC Plan Participant Website Experience Benchmark,” published in December 2025.

Security had come up as a chief concern among participants earlier last year. In September 2025, J.D. Power revealed that 62% of participant website and app users said security was more important than convenience to their overall digital experience. Account security became one of the greatest drivers of customer satisfaction, joined by retirement platform digital tools, in addition to usability and design features such as visual appeal, navigation and speed.

Andrew Denegre, a senior analyst at Corporate Insight and lead researcher for its 2025 study, says recordkeepers that have already invested in “core features” desired by participants now have the “freedom to innovate” with advanced features. Meanwhile, recordkeepers who have not invested in the basics now face pressure to step up their game.

Breaking Down the Ratings

Account balance information is what participants come to see, Denegre says, which explains why 89% of participants rated that category as “extremely important.”

However, the “privacy preferences category is new [to the top],” says Denegre. “It hasn’t been at the bottom, but it hasn’t floated up this high before.”

Of all respondents, 85% rated privacy preferences as “extremely important.”

Denegre says when firms communicate to participants that their data will not be shared externally, participants may be more comfortable sharing data with the firm for reasons that could benefits them, such as enabling enhanced site personalization.

Recordkeeper firms can—and are—leveraging artificial intelligence to create more tailored experiences for participants, Denegre says. For instance, firms may use AI to bring emergency savings tools to the attention of younger participants while highlighting catch-up contributions to a participant nearing retirement.

The Corporate Insight study identified Fidelity Investments, Alight Solutions and TIAA as “early innovators integrating AI-powered virtual support” into their platforms. Those firms, along with T. Rowe Price, achieved overall score gains in 2025 thanks to AI-driven enhancements. The study stated that TIAA’s FAQ-style results and Alight’s Lumen AI summaries “cut through the noise” of conventional keyword searches.

Ranking recordkeepers’ overall digital experiences, Corporate Insight placed Fidelity, TIAA, Empower Retirement and T. Rowe Price first, second, third and fourth, respectively. Fidelity maintained the top position in both the design and navigation category and the planning and research category for the third consecutive year, while continuing to earn the No. 1 spot in support. A new plan dashboard design extended the firm’s lead in design and navigation, while a fresh financial wellness dashboard gave the firm a near-perfect planning and research rating. Fidelity’s improved virtual assistant functionality aided its high support ranking, according to the study.

J.D. Power ranked 18 plan site and app providers on a 1,000-point scale that it calls its “Overall Customer Satisfaction Index.” Fidelity—in seventh place with 700 points—ranked greater than the study average of 690 points, and TIAA and Empower both ranked worse than the study’s average, tied with Voya for 14th place (663 points). Bank of America (747), Vanguard (717) and Ascensus (712)—in that order—earned the highest marks on the index.

Plan sponsors that responded to PLANSPONSOR’s 2025 DC Survey: Plan Provider Service Ratings consistently ranked Ascensus as a top-five provider for plans with assets up to $200 million. The firm also was recognized with several best-in-class awards in every service for which it was rated: participant services; sponsor services and support; plan administration; and investment and fees.

Simplicity Wins

Denegre says the leading firms identified in the Corporate Insight study found ways to integrate new resources without making their sites too complex. Fidelity and TIAA, for example, were able to integrate emergency savings offerings, such as Fidelity’s Goal Booster and Vanguard’s Cash Plus Account, into a “holistic and cohesive [digital] experience,” rather than a “sprawling, disorienting” one.

Edsart Heuberger, the product manager of pension administration benchmarking subscription at CEM Benchmarking Inc., says some recordkeepers still struggle to relay complex information in straightforward language.

“I think it’s just a human tendency to always try to do more with less,” says Heuberger. “Sometimes, keeping things sensible and simple can [seem] really difficult.”

While virtual support has proliferated, Heuberger emphasizes that a “digital-only approach” makes it difficult to reach a service representative when a participant truly needs to. Sites may purposely withhold the contact information of a service center for the sake of cost—a concealment he cautions against.

Corporate Insight fielded its 2025 DC Plan Participant Website Experience Benchmark survey in September, collecting responses from more than 1,500 plan participants.

The 2025 DC Survey: Plan Provider Service Ratings is based on the results of the annual PLANSPONSOR Defined Contribution Survey. The survey was fielded online among 3,172 plan sponsors from August through November 2024. All plan data were current as of June 30, 2024.