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聯絡: 美世回應

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United States
Norwood, 8 July 2010

Mercer, a leading provider of benefits administration outsourcing, revealed today that defined contribution participants who utilized retirement savings “best practices” such as automatic rebalancing and deferral increase during the recent market downturns realized greater account balance increases, by as much as 26 percentage points on average, versus other participant populations, based on data from October 2008 through April 2010 (see Figure 1).

Additionally, those participants who made an account exchange during the same period did slightly worse (5 percentage points) than those who did not – 30% versus 35% respectively. 

These findings are based on an analysis of Mercer’s database of 1.2 million defined contribution plan participants, excluding any participants who took a withdrawal or loan from their account during this time period. Deferral statistics refer to participants who made individual deferral decisions and participated in auto-deferral programs.

“Considering the unprecedented market and economic conditions of the past two years, we were interested in seeing how defined contribution plan participants’ account balances have fared based on some key decisions and best practice strategies,” said Dave Tolve, US Retirement Business Leader for Mercer’s Outsourcing business.  “Based on the results of our analysis, one message is crystal clear: participants who remained focused on their long-term retirement strategy and took positive steps to build their nest eggs regardless of short-term market activity came out ahead, even in the midst of the extreme market volatility.”

Implications for plan sponsors

Given the dramatic variation in results, Mercer believes plan sponsors should ensure that their plan designs encourage positive saving behaviors by offering tools that automatically rebalance investment portfolios and increase deferral rates. Currently, 81% of Mercer’s clients offer an automatic rebalance feature in their plan, and 77% of the clients for which Mercer tracks deferral rates offer a systematic deferral increase feature.

“Everyone involved in providing or administering defined contribution retirement savings plans knows that the biggest challenge is participant inertia. Once enrolled, participants seldom engage with their plans, and when they do it can sometimes lead to adverse outcomes,” said Mr. Tolve.  “By adding features like automatic rebalancing and automatic deferral increases, we believe plan sponsors can capitalize on participant inertia to drive more positive retirement savings outcomes.”

About Mercer
Mercer is a leading global provider of consulting, outsourcing, and investment services. Mercer works with clients to solve their most complex benefit and human capital issues, designing and helping manage health, retirement, and other benefits. It is a leader in benefits outsourcing. Mercer’s investment services include investment consulting and multi-manager investment management. Mercer’s 18,000 employees are based in more than 40 countries. The company is a wholly owned subsidiary of Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc., which lists its stock (ticker symbol: MMC) on the New York, Chicago, and London stock exchanges. For more information, visit www.mercer.com.

Securities offered through Mercer Securities, a division of MMC Securities Corp., a U.S. registered broker-dealer and member FINRA/SIPC. Mercer HR Services, LLC and MMC Securities Corp. are affiliates of and owned by Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc.

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聯絡: 美世回應