Retirement Wellness Planner from The Principal Helps Participants Visualize Goals

Planning resource is key feature of new participant digital experience

As part of its new digital experience for participants, the Principal Financial Group® has introduced an interactive Retirement Wellness Planner to help users easily manage, visualize and plan for their retirement savings goals.

The Retirement Wellness Planner includes interactive sliders, intuitive prompts and a real-time savings graph that focuses on monthly income in retirement and how long that income may last. Participants are able to take immediate action—such as increasing deferrals—within the planner itself.

“Personalization of the online experience is where we can deliver the greatest value to our participants,” said Jerry Patterson, senior vice president of retirement and investor services at The Principal®. “We want users to quickly and easily see how adjusting their own specific inputs can help boost their financial security in retirement.”

The Retirement Wellness Planner includes detailed, participant-specific attributes such as desired retirement age, employer match, salary and Social Security assumptions. Users can adjust their inputs to instantly see how changes would impact their monthly income in retirement.

The planner incorporates the Retirement Wellness Score, introduced earlier this fall, which represents the percentage of a participant’s pre-retirement income that they are able to maintain at retirement, ranging from zero percent to 100+ percent. The score is embedded in an intuitive, color-coded band that represents different ranges of income replacement.

For participants with plans administered by The Principal, the Retirement Wellness Planner is pre-populated with participant-specific information. A public version of the planner, where users enter their own information, is available here.

The Retirement Wellness Planner is a key feature within a new, mobile-friendly digital experience for participants, including improved account management, a simple online and text enrollment process and new educational resources and services. The refreshed design and functionality is based on feedback from participants, plan sponsors, advisors and experts in behavioral finance and digital design.

“Now that the new digital platform has been rolled out to all participants, we are excited to receive feedback and continue to improve upon the experience,” Patterson said.

The enhanced online experience is part of Principal® PlanWorks, a new approach to workplace retirement readiness that includes a platform of capabilities and services designed to make retirement plans work better for both participants and plan sponsors. PlanWorks is made up of three key components—plan design, participant experience and strategic measures—to help drive successful retirement outcomes.

For more research, analysis and insights from The Principal®, visit The Principal Knowledge Center and connect with us on Twitter.

About the Principal Financial GroupThe Principal Financial Group® (The Principal®)1 is a global investment management leader offering retirement services, insurance solutions and asset management. The Principal offers businesses, individuals and institutional clients a wide range of financial products and services, including retirement, asset management and insurance through its diverse family of financial services companies. Founded in 1879 and a member of the FORTUNE 500®, the Principal Financial Group has $513.5 billion in assets under management2 and serves some 19.5 million customers worldwide from offices in Asia, Australia, Europe, Latin America and the United States. Principal Financial Group, Inc. is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol PFG. For more information, visit www.principal.com.

1 “The Principal Financial Group” and “The Principal” are registered service marks of Principal Financial Services, Inc., a member of the Principal Financial Group.2 As of Sept. 30, 2014.

Principal Financial GroupJaime Naig, [e-mail]