Retirement Dashboard Improves Service for Clients of The Principal |
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Written by U.S. Insurance News
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Sunday, 16 March 2008 |
The Principal Financial Group is making account management a little easier for financial professionals.
The company has introduced Retirement Dashboard, an online account management tool that gives professionals quick, tailored access to information on the qualified retirement plans for clients of The Principal. The tool is located in the Principal eFinancial ProfessionalSM portion of the Principal Web site.
Other financial service companies have similar tools, but Kris Krikorian of A.G. Edwards thinks Retirement Dashboard has the edge over its competition.
"Some competitors [of The Principal] have similar data, but it's not all centralized like the Retirement Dashboard," Krikorian said. "The Principal is the only one with a roll-up page for the whole block."
Through Retirement Dashboard, financial professionals can use client summaries to help evaluate their book of business and determine priorities. They also can access more detailed information, such as client-specific investment options and downloadable reports for account value comparisons, distribution information, investment options, investment balances, and participation rates. Professionals can then download data into an Excel or PDF file and combine it with client data from other retirement plan service providers.
Dan McGee, vice president and managing director for The Principal's Retirement Distribution, said that Retirement Dashboard helps financial professionals deliver "top-notch service" to their clients.
"For example, they can quickly see which clients need to comply with the Pension Protection Act qualified default investment alternatives provision without tracking down individual client data," McGee said.
Support staff also are able to view client data through the delegate function of Retirement Dashboard. If financial professionals or their support staff have questions about a particular client, they can send an e-mail directly to the client's service representative at The Principal.
A new compliance tab allows financial professionals to view the compliance testing results of all qualified retirement plan clients in one place. Compliance information is updated as soon as it becomes available, including status of actual deferral percentage, actual contribution percentage, and pass/fail testing. "By adding the compliance tab, we're arming financial professionals with data they need in the heat of compliance season," explained Sarah Schmitz, Retirement Dashboard project leader.
McGee said that The Principal has received nothing but positive feedback from users of the Retirement Dashboard thus far, but the company is still working to make the tool better.
He added, "We're currently working to deliver additional client data and plan to launch a government reporting tab this spring."
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