(September 7, 2005) Manulife Financial’s Defined Contribution (DC) Pension Plan performed best in a recent review by Dalbar Canada.
Manulife took first place with a score of 88.94 in Dalbar Canada’s first-ever review of DC pension statements. In general, Dalbar says companies are aware of not “talking over” their clients and typically avoid using vague acronyms, jargon and legal jargon. Manulife differentiates itself in this environment by providing effective investment commentary, with a section titled “Looking Ahead at Retirement” that tracks a participant’s retirement goals and what they can do to fill the gap, and uses second-person language, thanks to which the statements are very pure and personal.
Mark McDonald, customer relations and public relations manager at Dalbar, says Manulife’s claims performed so well under scrutiny that they would likely stand out in any industry surveys the company conducts.
“The statements are forward-looking. It actually has projections. This is not something we see in any other statement in any other industry.”
McDonald says that overall, the quality of DC pension statements among the six companies surveyed was comparable to statements in the mutual fund industry and slightly higher in quality than brokerage reports.
For this retirement reporting study, the company surveyed six companies and reported the results of the top five. Dalbar did not disclose the identity of the sixth company, a “large insurance company” that came last in the study. Among the five highest-rated DC retirement plan statements, Manulife took first place, followed by Desjardins Financial Security with a score of 72.15, Great West Life with a score of 71.12, Standard Life with a score of 64.31 and Fidelity with a score of 63.06. A sixth unnamed company received a score of 59.94.
“This is our first exposure to pension claims, so the sample size is small,” McDonald says. “Next time we’ll probably expand.” The company surveys different parts of the industry twice a year to give companies time to “evolve the industry” and give them time to embrace change. Dalbar plans to revisit pension statements in 2007. Studies of mutual fund reports and segregated fund reports are planned for 2006.
Dalbar specializes in measuring companies’ service offerings in areas such as communication, customer satisfaction and service quality. In previous studies, Dalbar examined the performance of customer service representatives, brokerage statements, life insurance statements and mutual fund company statements. The company also examines online offerings from various mutual fund companies and how well they serve financial advisors.
Filed by Kate McCaffery, Advisor.ca, kate.mccaffery@advisor.rogers.com
(09/07/05)
