Two-thirds of Americans with defined contribution plans or IRAs spend less than five minutes examining their retirement plan disclosures, according to a new survey.
LIMRA, Windsor, Conn., published this finding in a summary of results from a poll of Americans.
One in five of the survey participants say they rarely or never read the disclosure paperwork at all. The study also finds that younger plan participants (ages 18-35) are more likely to report reading their disclosures and more likely to reach out to their employer for information about their retirement account than older participants.
"With the implementation of the Department of Labor's new fee disclosure rule, LIMRA wanted to gauge participant sentiment throughout the process," says Alison Salka, corporate vice president, LIMRA Retirement Research. "Not surprisingly, almost 9 out of 10 participants either did not know the fees they paid or did not think they paid any fees for their employer-sponsored retirement plans.
"As participants are provided more detailed information about their retirement plans' structure and fees, we are interested to see how they respond," Salka adds. This survey is part of a series to track consumer knowledge and understanding of the information and the subsequent actions (if any) they take."
