Retirement Advisers: archive
Every Retirement Advisers story in Retirement, newest first. 68 stories
1 story
Morgan Stanley survey: 45% of sponsors rank 401(k) education among their top three concerns
Participant understanding outranks benefits competitiveness among sponsors' three most important concerns, and the share naming the DC plan the single most valued benefit rose to 34%.
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401(k) Specialist examines AI in retirement plan advice and administration
The October installment reports participant-facing app guidance and back-office assistants for advisors, and asks which tasks still need a person.
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Transamerica survey finds 64% of auto-enrolling healthcare plans miss the full employer match
Automatic enrollment rose to 77% of surveyed healthcare employers from 62% in 2024; 82% of plans enroll participants at 3% or less.
Ascensus launches referral platform routing 401(k) savers to plan advisers
The recordkeeper administers more than $1.3 trillion for more than 16 million savers; its retirement president expects 18 to 20 partner firms live by this time next year.
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LIMRA: 77% of advised pre-retirees feel highly prepared for retirement vs. 47% without
The 2026 Retirement Income Readiness Report also found 76% of pre-retirees spent no more than five hours on planning steps in the last year.
Escalent's Cogent: 46% of former-employer DC plan holders highly likely to open rollover IRA
A July survey of 4,006 U.S. DC participants found former-employer plan balances averaging $90,000, with Gen Z's share of likely rollover candidates rising to 22% from 12%.
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Gusto data show small-business retirement plan adoption up about 60% since 2019
State-mandated retirement programs are pushing owners toward SEP, SIMPLE, solo 401(k) and small 401(k) plans, InvestmentNews reports.
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Cerulli and Morningstar find 10.2% of advisors' wealth clients come from DC plans
The joint research cites time, staffing and $250,000 account minimums as the friction that keeps plan relationships from becoming wealth relationships.
Cerulli and Morningstar find just over 10% of advisors' wealth clients come from DC plans
The research cites capacity, asset minimums and limited participant data as barriers, and finds nearly 40% of advisors say they lack the time to prospect inside their plans.
Cerulli and Morningstar find firms spending to turn DC plan participants into wealth clients
The white paper says 63% of surveyed advisers call leveraging DC plans for wealth prospecting at least a moderate priority.
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Halbert Hargrove built one client's income plan on four unbilled annuities
Fee-based products account for about 1% of annuity premiums, a 2025 LIMRA study finds, while insurers name the RIA channel their likeliest growth market.
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Ascensus announces advisor referral platform for more than 16 million plan participants
The company cites Cerulli research that 63% of active 401(k) participants operate without access to a financial advisor.
Edward Jones to launch AI-powered workplace retirement platform with Aboon and RPAG in 2027
The Retirement Plan Management Center spans prospecting, recordkeeper analysis and servicing, drawing on plan data from RPAG's 120,000-plan platform.
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Asteri Collective names Sheri Fitts executive director as founder Ann Slotwinski retires
Fitts, a 30-year industry veteran who founded Sheri Fitts & Co. and the Sway conference, will lead an alliance whose members service more than 51,200 retirement plans.
Asteri Collective names Sheri Fitts executive director as Slotwinski retires
Slotwinski leaves the retirement plan consultant collective at more than 51,200 plans, 2.2 million participants and $158 billion in assets under administration, 401(k) Specialist reported.
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NAPA's farewell address names four forces education can't answer
The outgoing president's list of what is changing runs past the tools her association sells, and the coverage gap sits outside the adviser's reach entirely.
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Edelman puts a recordkeeper product chief in charge of its workplace-retail handoff
The newly created chief retirement officer role spans two businesses whose real prize is the rollover moment; Edelman filled it from the recordkeeper side of the market.
Advisers say they ask for more assets; 71% of clients say they were never asked
Three studies trace a gap built from unbilled hours, unquantified planning value and thin staffing at the moment clients say they are ready to move assets.
LeafHouse's last symposium closes the year its advice business sold
The fiduciary layer keeps consolidating while the platform layer keeps the capital, and the final LNRS is the most legible move either side has made.
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Retirement saving now lands ahead of the down payment
U.S. Bank's 2026 survey puts Gen Z's wealth-building start at 19 and ranks retirement over ownership, which resets the adviser's opening conversation.
2 stories
Retirement's senior hiring turns outward for AI talent
Three senior appointments in a single roundup, two of them built around applied AI, show providers buying capability they have not grown.
Small-plan fee dispersion is the finding, and advisors own it
Two plans of the same size can sit two and a half times apart on administration, and that gap is what gets an advisor into the room.
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Pre-retirees want control of decisions they cannot yet evaluate
Edelman Financial Engines' first confidence report finds most pre-retirees want to run their own retirement decisions even though 60% cannot say what they own, pushing plan advice from education toward diagnosis.
Private assets will reach 401(k)s through the default sleeve
T. Rowe Price's sixth annual consultant survey finds the AI debate settled and the private-assets fight moving inside the multi-asset vehicle that already holds plan defaults.
Consultants automate the paperwork, not the fiduciary call
Across 36 firms advising $10.3 trillion of DC assets, AI has taken over workflows and meeting prep while plan design sits almost untouched.
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DC consultants stopped debating AI and started using it on the paperwork
T. Rowe Price's consultant study shows near-total AI adoption in the paperwork and a governance gap separating the firms pulling ahead.
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RVK's institutional seats are the asset Creative Planning bought
More than 200 institutional relationships put an asset gatherer inside the fiduciary room, and the ownership question now travels with every consultant search.
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The industry grades its own talent pipeline a C
With Cerulli putting roughly 35% of advisers into retirement inside a decade, three plan-advisory executives graded recruiting from a D-plus to a B-minus—and the pipeline central staffing solves better than individual practices can.
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Prime Capital launches endowment, foundation OCIO practice
The retirement plan RIA is targeting nonprofits with $5 million to $250 million in assets for fiduciary management services.
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Fiduciary relief, not fee savings, should lead PEP pitch
Mike Ziccardi of CBIZ wants advisors to sell the PEP's named fiduciary and independent oversight before they ever mention price.
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NPPG buys ProManage's contribution layer in retirement M&A
The $4.33 billion platform deal is a capability purchase, pricing managed-account technology and sponsor relationships over asset count.
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Rising plan advisers put guidance ahead of new products
Early-career leaders see sponsors opening the door to advice — and they are skeptical that managed accounts have earned their fees.
3 stories
Do your reps: advice for the 2026 Emerging Leaders
The 2025 Emerging Leaders cohort tells next year's class that client exposure and networking beat waiting to feel ready.
Higginbotham and Two West: buying the platform, not the book
The Fort Worth company's combination with a Kansas City 401(k) specialist keeps the team and platform intact — a sign retirement M&A is pricing capabilities over accounts.
For retirement advisers, digital tools can't replace the human moment
New MDRT research hands plan advisers a playbook: automate the routine, escalate the high-stakes and volatile moments to a human.
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Public sector workers favor family over advisers, MissionSquare finds
New MissionSquare data points advisers toward confidence-building, not more information, for public sector participants.
2 stories
Plan advisers get an AI research tool with a source trail
Morningstar's PitchBook integration with Google's Gemini puts attributable data in front of plan fiduciaries.
PGIM arms DC reps with Nestimate's target-date scoring tool
The analyzer scores target-date funds against a plan's workforce, putting demographic fit in front of plan committees as the next menu mandate takes shape.
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ASPPA creates a credential for the pooled-plan market
The Qualified Pooled Plan Professional designation arrives as pooled employer plan assets double to $34 billion in a year.
ASPPA puts a credential behind pooled-plan work
The new QP3 designation argues that pooled-plan administration is its own discipline, not an extension of single-employer work.