Products May 16, 2018

Sentinel Adopts Service to Improve Data Delivery and Protection

The company says it needed to stay innovative about how it operates—whether end users want to check 401(k) balances on laptops, dial into a call center to talk about short-term investments or use a mobile device to get an answer to a question about insurance coverage.

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Sentinel Benefits & Financial Group, a provider of employee benefit consulting, administration and brokerage services that include retirement plan and flexible spending account (FSA) administration, COBRA, insurance brokerage and investment advisory services, has adopted has adopted Actifio’s data-as-a-service platform to provide customers with access to relevant data when and where needed with ease.

Because Sentinel provides so many services that are dependent on data availability, the company says it needed to stay innovative about how it operates—whether end users want to check 401(k) balances on laptops, dial into a call center to talk about short-term investments or use a mobile device to get an answer to a question about insurance coverage. In addition, the company needed a solution to improve its disaster recovery (DR) and business continuity position beyond what was possible with tape backup.

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With Actifio Sky and Actifio Data-as-a-Service, Sentinel Benefits was able to create high-availability customer data solutions. For less than the cost of a backup product, Sentinel got data copy virtualization, data production with rapid recovery, instant ability to test applications and off-site DR. Since deploying Actifio, the company has significantly reduced the administrative time of its team and slashed recovery time.

Todd Larson, CIO of Sentinel Benefits, says, “The company needed data protection improvements that checked some important boxes: deduplication, compression, efficient replication and rapid restore. However, we needed more than just backup. We wanted to get to data on demand, while enabling our test/dev processes. That’s what led us to Actifio. They worked hard to understand what we wanted and why it was important for our business.”

For more information about Actifio, visit www.actifio.com. For more information about Sentinel Benefits, visit www.sbgi.com.
Data & Research May 16, 2018

Americans Support Retirement Security Public Policy

Eighty percent of American workers surveyed said they would like to hear congressional candidates discuss retirement security.  

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American workers rank retirement security as the top issue they want congressional candidates to talk about more on the campaign trail this year, according to a survey by Prudential Financial. Eighty percent want to hear about retirement security; 75%, job security; 74%, taxes; 70%, workforce development; 67%, the minimum wage; and 61%, the cost of college.

Seventy-two percent are concerned about their financial security in retirement, 54% say they will have to delay retirement due to inadequate savings, and 65% wish they had a better understanding of how much they will need to save for retirement. Forty percent say financial stress is causing health issues or loss of sleep.

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“American workers across the board are concerned about their financial security in retirement, and they’re looking for help wherever they can get it, including from their employers and policymakers,” says Ann Kappler, deputy general counsel and head of external affairs at Prudential.

Twenty-seven percent have a second job, and 29% say daily expenses curtail their ability to save for retirement. Forty percent have cut back on retirement savings because of a financial issue.

On average, workers spend 3.6 hours a week managing personal financial issues while on the job, and 30% say financial stress has impacted their job performance.

Seventy-eight percent support Congressional legislation that would permit small businesses to join together to make it easier to offer retirement benefits to employees. If given the option, 56% would turn part of their retirement balance into guaranteed lifetime income payments. Seventy-six percent are in favor of requiring retirement plans to provide participants with estimates of their income in retirement.

Sixty-six percent said they are more likely to remain with an employer that understands their personal financial situation. Fifty-seven percent said they are more committed to employers that offer free financial education on key issues like retirement planning, and 58% said when they feel financially secure, they are more productive at work.

“The Retirement Enhancement and Savings Act contains several important provisions designed to increase access to workplace retirement plans, retirement planning information and lifetime income options,” Kappler says. “The bill has broad, bipartisan support among policymakers on Capitol Hill, as well as among retirement experts. And, as our survey shows, these sensible provisions are widely supported by those who would benefit the most: American workers.”

Morning Consult conducted the survey in April for Prudential Financial.

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