With proper education, targeted communication and guidance about how a professionally managed account can assist with a participant’s overall retirement planning goals, plan providers can increase both the availability and use of managed accounts.

As plan providers know, once plan participants make a decision to use a particular feature of their plans, they tend to maintain the status quo. The key for providers is to convince participants to allow a professional to assume responsibility for investment choices, which participants can do by picking the managed account option in their plans.

In fact, research shows 31% of plan participants who currently do not have a managed account could be persuaded to use one. That group includes those who have no reason for not using a managed account, don’t know enough about it or have not had the time to evaluate it.

Currently, 40% of participants have access to a managed account, with the option being most common in plans offered by non-profit/educational organizations (48%) and least common in plans offered by government agencies (35%).

Among participants who have access to a managed account, 40% use them. Participant use of this investment option ranges from 49% in plans offered by non-profit plans to 22% in plans offered by for-profit companies.

Once a participant adopts a managed account, providers must take advantage of the opportunity to develop a deeper relationship to manage additional household assets.

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