Washington Investment Advisors Introduces Personal Retirement View

WASHINGTON, DC--(Marketwire - Jan 16, 2013) - Lenda Washington, President of Washington Investment Advisors, today announced the formal launch of Personal Retirement View (PRV). PRV is a personalized consolidated retirement income planning report that helps plan sponsors increase retirement plan enrollment and active participation to enable employees to attain adequate income replacement in retirement. Washington Investment Advisors, LLC, is a registered investment advisory firm providing pension consulting services to public plan sponsors.

PRV aggregates data from multiple third-party administrators and employee census information into a personalized consolidated retirement income planning report. Issued quarterly, PRV provides employees with multiple retirement savings accounts with the information they need to save adequately for retirement. Specifically, PRV helps these employees answer key questions, such as: "How do I determine the amount of retirement income needed to maintain my lifestyle?" "How much of my current income do I need to defer to reach this goal?" and "How should my salary deferrals be invested to achieve this goal?" Washington Investment Advisors does not provide plan administration or individual investment advisory services.

According to the results of the 13th Annual Transamerica Retirement Survey, released in May 2012, just 39% of those surveyed believe they are building an adequate amount of savings for retirement. While 57% of workers have some sort of retirement strategy in place, just 15 percent have factored in plans to retire early and/or for loss of savings. More than a quarter (27%) reported they are "guessing" at their retirement savings needs.

"It's widely accepted that Americans aren't saving adequately for retirement. This is due, at least in part, to a lack of understanding of how much income they'll require in retirement, how much they need to defer to reach the required level, and the ability to determine whether their contributions are allocated properly and performing adequately. PRV takes the mystery out of retirement planning and makes it easy for employers to help employees with multiple retirement savings plans implement a strategy that will provide adequate retirement income," stated Ms. Washington.

"Our goal in developing PRV is to provide information seldom given to defined contribution participants. Unlike defined benefit plans that start with the end in mind, defined contribution participants are simply told to 'save as much as you can for as long as you can' and 'assume as much risk as you can stand' so they have the largest possible lump sum to fund their retirement; they are not given a goal amount, nor given guidance on how to achieve that goal," Ms. Washington continued.

At the conclusion of a one-year PRV beta implementation (ended June 30, 2012) at a DC-based public sector employer with a cafeteria-style 401(a) plan and a 457 plan, enrollment in the 457 plan by 401(a) participants increased 2%; this does not include participation by mid-year 401(a) enrollees. The third-party administrator for the plans identifies this beta period as the best enrollment year in the 10-year period serving the plans and attributes the record enrollment levels directly to increased employee awareness resulting from PRV. Ms. Washington expects these figures to grow with an increase in use of PRV resulting from a robust communication effort of PRV's availability in the second year. Employees enrolled in the 457 plan are more likely (6%) to reach their retirement goals than non-457 participants.

"It's difficult to encourage individuals to alter their savings behavior without a specific goal and some measure of what constitutes success. PRV was designed to a) encourage employees to direct an amount adequate to meet their retirement income goal into their savings deferral plans (457, 401(a), 401(k), et al) and b) properly allocate their contributions assuming the proper amount of risk to achieve the returns required to meet this goal," Ms. Washington concluded.

PRV is customized to be consistent with the appearance of individual client plans. As shown in this demonstration model, PRV includes:

The Big Picture - This sections shows employees: how much income they'll need in retirement -- based on 70% of annual ending salary; how much they'll have -- combined 401(a), 457, social security, and other savings calculated at 33% of annual ending salary; and whether their savings are currently on track to meet their goal or need to be adjusted.

Your Current Position - This section shows current age, annual income, last quarter contributions to 401(a) and 457 plans, and how the current total savings in their plans are allocated.

Understanding Your Retirement - This section features graphs showing how the annual retirement goal will do in average and good markets from five perspectives -- Annual Retirement Goal, You Are On Track to Have, Your Annual Shortfall, Lump-sum Goal at Retirement, Receive Income Until (estimated age to which funds are expected to last) -- with interactive sections that enable employees to make changes, such as increase contributions, change asset allocation, change retirement requirements (age, planning horizon, income required), account for other sources of income, and re-calculate their current savings and investment strategy against what is required for a comfortable retirement.

Make It Happen - This section provides all the contact information necessary to adjust salary deferrals or asset allocations to their plans and help using PRV.

About Personal Retirement View
Personal Retirement View (PRV) is a personalized consolidated retirement income planning report that helps employees with multiple retirement savings accounts determine the amount of retirement income they require, and understand and adjust current salary deferral amounts and portfolio asset allocations to effectively meet their retirement income goal. PRV was created by Washington Investment Advisors, LLC, an investment advisory firm providing pension consulting services to public plan sponsors, to support plan sponsors and third-party administrators in their efforts to increase employee retirement plan enrollment and active participation. Washington Investment Advisors does not provide plan administration or individual investment advisory services. Additional information about Personal Retirement View may be found at https://personalretirementview.com/.