2015
Retirement Plan Adviser Survey
Arguably, retirement plan advisers have a better—or at least
a more comparative—perspective than their plan sponsor clients about the
relative strength of products and services offered by investment and
recordkeeping providers. After all, advisers can—and usually do—work with many
of them concurrently. The 2015 Retirement Plan Adviser Survey, our eighth,
endeavors to gain insight from the adviser community about how providers and
funds are selected, and which are the favorites each year.
Methodology
This September, approximately 15,000 adviser subscribers to PLANADVISER were asked to respond to the 2015 PLANADVISER Plan Adviser Survey, developed by the magazine’s editorial and research teams. Survey questions pertained to the size and scope of advisers’ qualified plan business, practice management, compensation and client service, as well as their assessments of investment managers, mutual funds and defined contribution (DC) providers.
At the close of the survey, 452 complete responses had been received from retirement plan advisers. To qualify to supply opinions on mutual fund families and specific mutual funds, an adviser had to be personally involved in evaluating and recommending fund choices in an advisory capacity to qualified plan clients; 225 advisers met this criterion.
In order to evaluate defined contribution providers, advisers had to answer affirmatively that they personally evaluate and recommend DC providers in an advisory capacity for qualified plan clients; 275 advisers did so. In addition, an adviser needed to have worked with a defined contribution provider more than once for his favorability rating of that recordkeeper to count. For more information and additional research available, please contact surveys@assetinternational.com.
Top criteria used to decide which funds are appropriate for plans
| 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | 5th | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Performance (one-year returns) | 5.6% | 11.1% | 27.8% | 30.6% | 25.0% |
| Performance (five-year returns) | 22.4% | 38.8% | 17.0% | 12.2% | 9.5% |
| Performance vs. benchmarks | 55.1% | 25.1% | 10.6% | 5.3% | 3.9% |
| Manager tenure | 6.9% | 18.3% | 30.5% | 26.7% | 17.6% |
| Brand | 0.0% | 8.9% | 22.2% | 17.8% | 51.1% |
| Style drift | 2.3% | 13.8% | 24.1% | 27.6% | 32.2% |
| Total assets | 5.0% | 15.0% | 25.0% | 5.0% | 50.0% |
| Sharpe ratio | 11.4% | 24.6% | 28.1% | 25.4% | 10.5% |
| Share class availability | 7.6% | 17.1% | 13.3% | 40.0% | 21.9% |
| Adviser support | 12.5% | 0.0% | 9.4% | 15.6% | 62.5% |
| Supporting materials | 0.0% | 9.1% | 4.5% | 31.8% | 54.5% |
| Fee structure for adviser | 0.0% | 6.7% | 20.0% | 6.7% | 66.7% |
| Fee structure for plan | 20.2% | 21.3% | 24.7% | 18.0% | 15.7% |
| Plan demographics | 32.5% | 8.4% | 19.3% | 15.7% | 24.1% |