Discontent Ed
In another week (or so), PLANSPONSOR will publish its annual Defined Contribution Survey. There are other surveys in this space, of course, but ours stands apart, IMHO, for its breadth and depth, painting a portrait of the industry that transcends size, geography, and provider. And this year the survey, now in its 13th year, is even bigger than ever. Over the years, asked to rank the criteria used in selecting their DC plan provider, plan sponsors have reliably opted to put “others” first—and this year, as in every year we have asked plan sponsors to do so, they ranked service to participants as the most important criteria, garnering a ranking of 6.5 on a 7.0 scale. Once again service to plan sponsors was the second most important (6.50). Not surprisingly (particularly these days), investment performance was deemed the third most significant, while the financial strength of the provider was ranked fourth. Interestingly enough, the numerical importance of all of these declined slig...