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Products May 19, 2014
Manning & Napier Tool Examines Plan Failure Risk
Investment solutions provider Manning & Napier launched a new website and retirement plan “prioritizer” to help advisers steer plan sponsor clients towards long-term benefits success.
Reported by PLANADVISER staff
The Take Control website helps advisers reduce their clients’ plan failure risk—or the chance of a company’s benefits strategy failing to result in either plan sponsors or plan participants achieving desired outcomes. The website is built around an interactive benefits prioritizer tool, which helps sponsors set short and long-term objectives and provides helpful benchmarks on plan costs and performance.
A short video on the website explains the key components of avoiding plan failure risk. The website also offers guidance on how to assess an organization’s ability to pay for retirement benefits. Featured infographics include an explanatory timeline of the evolution of employee benefits practices, and how health care and retirement benefits have converged.
Manning & Napier hopes the website will help advisers and sponsors become more proactive about plan decisions, instead of responding to external events or cost-assessment data alone. The tool can be used to develop a coordinated strategy that incorporates both retirement and health care objectives, the firm says, in order to drive positive outcomes and avoid plan failure risk.
“Between increased health care spending and declining retirement savings, many benefits plans are subject to plan failure risk, which today threatens the long-term security of both a business and its employees,” explains Shelby George, practice leader for benefits solutions at Manning & Napier. “Employee benefits have evolved and it is our responsibility as active investment managers to ensure that advisers and their plan sponsors have the tools to mitigate these risks. Our new microsite will help plan sponsors take control and move to a strategic, value-based approach, with effective coordination between health and retirement planning.”