Deals & People November 2, 2009

TIAA-CREF Hires Two Business Leaders

TIAA-CREF has appointed Teresa Hassara as senior managing director and head of Institutional Client Services and Kevin Nazworth as vice president and head of the organization's Health Care Segment.

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Hassara will lead the company’s Institutional business, which serves more than 15,000 retirement plan sponsors in the academic, research, medical, and cultural fields, and in a newly created position, Nazworth will be responsible for overseeing and developing institutional business with hospitals and health care organizations, according to TIAA-CREF. Nazworth is based in Charlotte and reports to Bertram Scott, executive vice president and chief institutional development and sales officer.

Hassara joins TIAA-CREF from Fidelity Investments, where she was most recently senior vice president. During her 17-year career with Fidelity, she also served as an executive vice president of Fidelity Employer Service Company’s HR/Payroll practice, and oversaw the company’s mid-sized client business.

Nazworth joins TIAA-CREF from VALIC, where he was most recently executive vice president, Group Management & National Markets. During his 26-year career with VALIC he also led the firm’s health care retirement segment for four years, focusing on developing and serving the 403(b), 457, and 401(k) business in local and regional markets. He began his career as a financial adviser.

Data & Research November 2, 2009

More Participants Increase Savings, Seek Advice

Bank of America Merrill Lynch Retirement & Benefit Plan Services' quarterly report on plan and participant activities within its proprietary 401(k) business found 60% of participants started or increased savings.

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Conversely, 40% of participants stopped or decreased saving.

An executive summary of the DC Scorecard said 64% of plan participants who changed their savings rate in Q3 chose to increase savings (compared to 63% in Q2, and 53% in Q1). The number of participants who stopped contributing to their plans in Q3 was 46% lower than in Q1 (Q2 was 34% lower than in Q1), and the number of participants who decreased their contribution in Q3 was 44% lower than in Q1 (Q2 was 39% lower than in Q1).

The data also show a significant year-over-year climb in plan participant use of the firm’s Advice Access service. Plans that use the Advice Access service saw a 74% increase in participants accessing advice.

Plan sponsors are taking steps as well. The scorecard indicated a 12% increase in the adoption of automatic enrollment, and a 20% increase in the adoption of automatic increase. The data also show a 20% increase in plan usage of Advice Access.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch Retirement & Benefit Plan Services’ business includes more than 1,500 plan sponsors and more than 1.5 million actively contributing plan participants.

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