Dalbar Releases Top 10 Plan Participant Websites

Dalbar Inc.’s annual ranking of defined contribution plan participant websites was released last week, with the firm providing a top-10 list by way of daily evaluations by its user experience research team.

This year’s rankings found TIAA, Fidelity and Principal Financial Group at the top of a 100-point scale, based on five categories: behavior-centric web support, consistency, content currency, functionality and usability.

The Marlborough, Massachusetts-based market researcher shared the top 10 by its scoring methodology:

1. TIAA
2. Fidelity
3. Principal
4. Voya
5. Merrill (Bank of America)
6. Newport Group
7. Corebridge Financial (Retirement)
8. Vanguard
9. Mission Square
10. Lincoln Financial

Each website for DC participants was judged based on the following criteria:

• Functionality (50 points): the quality and range of capabilities and content provided to plan participants;
• Usability (30 points): the ease of entering and navigating the site, the ability to locate information and the accessibility of help functions;
• Behavior Centric (20 points): Quality of web support that addresses participants’ most frequent offline behaviors and concerns and facilitates the adaptation of that behavior to online activity;
• Content Currency (deductions only): Points were deducted when the site’s content did not meet standards of relevance, timeliness and quality; and
• Consistency (deductions only): Points were deducted when the user experienced inconsistencies in a website’s image, transitioning or content.

Last year’s top provider was also TIAA, followed by Newport Group, Merrill, Corebridge Financial (Retirement) and Principal.