Tool Helps Participants Visualize Retirement Goals

The Retirement Wellness Planner includes interactive sliders, intuitive prompts and a real-time savings graph that focuses on monthly income in retirement and how long that income may last. Participants can take immediate action—such as increasing deferrals—within the planner itself.

Detailed, participant-specific attributes—such as desired retirement age, employer match, salary and Social Security assumptions—are included in the planner. Users can adjust inputs to see immediately how changes would impact their monthly income in retirement.

The planner incorporates the Retirement Wellness Score, introduced this fall, which represents the percentage of a participant’s pre-retirement income that they are able to maintain at retirement, ranging from 0% to more than 100%. The score is embedded in an intuitive, color-coded band that represents different ranges of income replacement.

For participants with plans administered by The Principal, the Retirement Wellness Planner is pre-populated with participant-specific information. A public version of the planner, where users enter their own information, is available here.

The Retirement Wellness Planner is a key feature in a new, mobile-friendly digital experience for participants, that includes improved account management, a simple online and text enrollment process and new educational resources and services. The refreshed design and functionality are based on feedback from participants, plan sponsors, advisers and experts in behavioral finance and digital design.

“Now that the new digital platform has been rolled out to all participants, we are excited to receive feedback and continue to improve upon the experience,” Jerry Patterson, senior vice president of retirement and investor services at The Principal, said in a statement.

The enhanced online experience is part of Principal PlanWorks, a new approach to workplace retirement readiness that includes a platform of capabilities and services designed to make retirement plans work better for both participants and plan sponsors.

“Personalization of the online experience is where we can deliver the greatest value to our participants,” Patterson says. “We want users to quickly and easily see how adjusting their own specific inputs can help boost their financial security in retirement.”

The Principal Financial Group is a global investment manager offering retirement services, insurance solutions and asset management.