Robo-Advice Seen As Most ‘Over-Hyped’ Trend In Plan Advisor Survey

ARLINGTON, VA, October 10, 2018 – The National Association of Plan Advisors (NAPA) has released the results of its first-ever survey of nearly 500 retirement plan advisors conducted in conjunction with their annual conference, the NAPA 401(k) Summit.

NAPA, part of the American Retirement Association (ARA), surveyed more than 500 advisors to get a glimpse into the industry landscape.

“We wanted to take advantage of the largest gathering of retirement plan advisors in the nation to get their sense of their current challenges and future trends,” said Nevin Adams, Chief Content Officer, American Retirement Association, and Editor-in-Chief of NAPA-Net the Magazine, which conducted the Summit Insider. “This first-ever survey of the nation’s leading retirement plan advisors offers a variety of perspectives as well as some remarkable consistency on key issues.”

The key findings include:

• Client retention was the biggest advisor issue cited; nearly a quarter (24 percent) said it was “very important,” and another third (33 percent) rated it as an “important” consideration.
• While savings/deferral rates, participation rates, and plan administration costs top plan sponsor concerns, cybersecurity is an emerging issue, and ranked second among plan sponsors with over $100 million in assets.
• Robo-advice was deemed the most “overhyped” industry trend.
• More than half (56 percent) said they would like more information about health savings accounts, or HSAs.
• Seventy-eight percent of respondents said they sometimes favored passive options depending on the situation.
• The most common reason cited for shifting to passive options was a desire to reduce plan costs (34 percent), but the second-most cited (22 percent) was plan sponsor demand.
• A third (31percent) are currently tracking profitability on a per plan basis – another quarter (27 percent) are doing so “sometimes.”
• Nearly four in ten (39 percent) said that litigation trends are influencing plan sponsor receptivity to their design recommendations.

About the National Association of Plan Advisors (NAPA)

The National Association of Plan Advisors was created by and for retirement plan advisors. Membership is also open to other retirement industry professionals who support the interests of plan advisors. NAPA is the only advocacy group exclusively focused on the issues that matter to retirement plan advisors. More information about NAPA is available at napa-net.org.

About the American Retirement Association

The American Retirement Association, based in the Washington, D.C. area, is a non-profit professional organization established to educate all types of retirement plan professionals, and to preserve and enhance the employer-based retirement plan system as part of the development of a cohesive and coherent national retirement income policy. The American Retirement Association is comprised of five premier retirement industry associations; the American Society of Pension Professionals & Actuaries (ASPPA), the ASPPA College of Pension Actuaries (ACOPA), the National Association of Plan Advisors (NAPA), the National Tax-deferred Savings Association (NTSA), and the Plan Sponsor Council of America (PSCA).