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In Practice January 17, 2007
Putnam and The Hartford Get High Marks From DALBAR
DALBAR released Wednesday its annual ranking of top customer service providers in the financial intermediary, mutual fund, broker/dealer, annuities, life insurance and retirement plan provider industry.
Reported by Adrien Martin
Putnam ranked at the top of the research and consulting firm’s list for customer service provided to professionals who advise investors both post-sale and pre-sale. In the post-sale category, Putnam was followed by Goldman Sachs, Seligman Funds, BlackRock, The Individual Life Division of the Hartford, 1st Global, Pacific Life, Transamerica Capital, Evergreen Investments, RiverSource, Sun Life Financial, and Genworth Financial.
In the pre-sale financial intermediary category, Putnam was followed by JPMorgan Funds, Evergreen Investments, PLANCO (Hartford Director, Hartford Leaders, Hartford Mutual Funds) and Genworth Financial.
The Hartford was the single provider to earn an award for retirement plan service to consumers.
Putnam Investments ranked at the top of mutual fund providers, an accolade it has already received 15 times, followed by Seligman Funds, Evergreen Investments, BlackRock, Transamerica/IDEX and JPMorgan Funds.
In terms of annuities providers, The Hartford Life came out on top, followed by Putnam Investments, New York Life-MainStay Annuities, Guardian Insurance & Annuity Company, and Prudential Financial.
For life insurance providers, The Individual Life Division of The Hartford was the only firm to meet DALBAR’s criteria for insurance providers.
DALBAR gives the service awards based on systematic testing of how financial companies respond to the needs for service from their customers over the year. Companies that exceed a variety of industry benchmarks after one year of testing earn the DALBAR Service Award, the firm said.