Callan's 2024 Defined Contribution Trends Survey: Governance and Fees Top of Mind for DC Plan Sponsors

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Apr 25, 2024, 07:30 ET

SAN FRANCISCO, April 25, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Callan, a leading institutional investment consulting firm, announced today the results of its 2024 Defined Contribution (DC) Trends Survey. Now in its 17^th year, the survey covers the key tenets of DC plan management, such as governance, investments, fees, and plan design. The survey paints a detailed picture of the challenges and opportunities that are important to DC plan sponsors.

"Our DC Trends Survey provides a benchmark for sponsors to evaluate their plans compared to peers, as well as actionable information to help them improve their plans and outcomes for participants," said Jamie McAllister, senior vice president and DC consultant. "This year's survey shows how certain trends that have only emerged within the last few years are persisting—trends such as retaining assets in the plan, increased valuations of indirect fees, collective trusts prevalence over mutual funds, and more."

Key Takeaways:

Top areas of focus for DC plan sponsors include plan governance and process, investment management fees, and administration fees.
Fiduciary initiatives in 2023 center on reviewing plan fees, the investment policy statement, and the investment structure. These will also be top areas of focus in 2024, with reviewing plan fees as the priority (74%).
Most plans offered some sort of retirement income solution to employees in 2023. Installment payments (78%) and partial distributions (76%) were the most common.
There was a meaningful uptick in the prevalence of managed accounts from 2017: 58% offered managed account services, and 84% monitor or benchmark these services.
Financial wellness tools (70%) saw a significant increase in utilization in 2023 compared to 2017.
81% sought to retain assets of retirees, and 61% sought to retain assets of terminated participants.

Conducted online in late 2023, the survey incorporates responses from 132 DC plan sponsors, including both Callan clients and other organizations. Respondents spanned a range of industries—the top were financial services and government.

Find the summary blog post and survey here.

About Callan

Callan was founded as an employee-owned investment consulting firm in 1973. Ever since, we have empowered institutional clients with creative, customized investment solutions backed by proprietary research, exclusive data, and ongoing education. Today, Callan advises clients with more than $3 trillion in total assets, which makes it among the largest independently owned investment consulting firms in the U.S. Callan uses a client-focused consulting model to serve pension and defined contribution plan sponsors, endowments, foundations, independent investment advisers, investment managers, and other asset owners. Callan has six offices throughout the U.S. Learn more at callan.com.

Media Contact:
Elizabeth Anathan
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SOURCE Callan LLC