1. Participant home page and dashboard

Gold medal: T.Rowe Price

Since the home page and dashboard are the first encounters that plan participants have online with recordkeepers, it's essential that these features provide what they need. And T. Rowe Price took gold for its efforts in this category as well, with its home page and dashboard design and organization; selection and presentation of account information; on-page resources; and quick link availability.

Its revamp of the home page summarizes information for all participants' accounts and offers an impressive retirement readiness planning experience and a notable contribution rate modeler, the report says, as well as presenting educational resources and organizational aids.

In its seventh annual "Retirement Plan Monitor Awards Report," Corporate Insight has recognized firms it considers to have produced the greatest innovation and improvement in participants' online experience.

Companies were awarded bronze, silver, or gold medals in categories related to technology and user experience.

The article below tells more. See the gallery for the gold medal winners. (Photos: Shutterstock)

6. Mobile participant experience

Gold medal: Empower Retirement

Mobile platforms present numerous challenges thanks to the variety of platforms, with key attributes including available mobile platforms, including phone apps, tablet apps and mobile websites; content usability and design; ease of navigation; login and security; depth and presentation of account data; and transactional capabilities.

Empower's "significant improvements" this year included the ability to upload documents via an in-app camera feature, as well as the ability to view investments and compare funds; search and filter transactions; and view statements and documents. (Photos: Shutterstock)

5. Tools and calculators

Gold Medal: Principal

Principal won due to its diversity of retirement and general finance tools and calculators; quality of the primary retirement-readiness tool; comprehensiveness of inputs; automatic data importing and input help options; selection and presentation of results; dynamic modeling capabilities and specific calls to action; and overall ease of use.

Participants can access financial wellness checkups, as well as tools for budget, student loans, home affordability and money personality. While the report said the tools are not consistent in presentation of inputs and results, they are user friendly.

4. Educational resources

Gold medal: Principal

Principal garnered gold in this category as well, with its depth and breadth of retirement-focused and general finance content; quality of resources; variety of content formats; and findability and organization of resources.

As the report points out, retirement preparedness is not just a matter of financial literacy in retirement concepts, since outside financial factors—student loans, credit card debt, medical expenses—can easily disrupt the best-laid plans. Therefore, it's essential to go beyond just retirement education.

Experiences on Principal's platform are personalized to the user via the Enrich educational platform, with a suite of interactive courses and "brief, easily digestible resources." Resources go beyond retirement-specific content to general financial wellness education.

3. Transaction capabilities

Gold medal: TIAA

To have true mobile and online access, a participant has to be able to carry out transactions the same way. TIAA captured the gold medal for the sixth time in a row for its efforts in this arena, with the selection of transactions available; transactional interface usability and quality; viewability of account information from transactional interfaces; and available recommendations, guidance and help resources.

Among its improvements this year were rebalance decision support, RMD assistance and help resources and transactional interface on the Estimate Loans and Withdrawals page. It also redesigned its Automated Assistant feature, and offers not just a live chat feature but also the ability to request a call for further support.

2. Participant account data

Gold medal: T.Rowe Price

T. Rowe Price earned gold for the third year in a row for its efforts to provide account data online, including balance, contribution, investment, performance and retirement readiness information, as well as historical plan data.

Although it didn't actually make significant updates to its participant site in 2019, other than its home page, its "already-impressive suite of contribution information" did the job, as did its "selection of balance and allocation data as well as its detailed account histories and customizable quarterly statements."

Attributes at which the firm excelled were selection plan information, presentation of plan information, selection of plan documents and online quarterly statements and on-demand statement functionality.

1. Participant home page and dashboard

Gold medal: T.Rowe Price

Since the home page and dashboard are the first encounters that plan participants have online with recordkeepers, it's essential that these features provide what they need. And T. Rowe Price took gold for its efforts in this category as well, with its home page and dashboard design and organization; selection and presentation of account information; on-page resources; and quick link availability.

Its revamp of the home page summarizes information for all participants' accounts and offers an impressive retirement readiness planning experience and a notable contribution rate modeler, the report says, as well as presenting educational resources and organizational aids.