As part of National Retirement Security Week, scheduled for the week of Oct. 21, CUNA Mutual Retirement Solutions will provide plan participants with a set of tools to help them reflect on their personal savings journeys and make sure they are on target to reach their retirement goals. 2019 marks the seventh year CUNA Mutual Retirement Solutions has participated in this national initiative.
The theme for this year’s program is “Take Control of Your Financial Fitness Story.” The campaign invites employees to address their personal financial challenges and opportunities by exploring the new Financial Fitness program featured on their retirement plan website, BenefitsForYou. The program starts out with a Financial Fitness Checkup™ and offers personalized education tracks, representing the full circle of financial wellness topics.
“This campaign, along with the new Financial Fitness program, delivers education topics that our retirement plan participants said they wanted to learn about,” said Paul Chong, senior vice president, CUNA Mutual Retirement Solutions. “They want more resources to help them overcome key financial wellness challenges, including budgeting, managing debt and smart savings practices. So that’s what we gave them.”
Early usage of the new program validates that retirement plan savers want to learn more about core financial wellness topics, including budgeting and managing debt, which was selected a top education priority by participants in CUNA Mutual Retirement Solutions’ 2018 Participant Retirement Education Preferences Survey
The top three content selections for early career users of the new Financial Fitness program, as of August are: 1) Building a Budget, 2) Managing Your Debt, and 3) Living within Your Means. Mid-career readers indicated preference for the following top three choices: 1) Managing Your Debt, 2) Building a Budget and 3) Building an Emergency Fund. And savers approaching retirement were drawn to the following top three selections: 1) Social Security, Medicare and Retirement, 2) Living within Your Means and 3) Determining Retirement Needs.
Chong summarized, “Early usage of this new program tracks with what our savers asked for in our 2018 survey – resources to help them overcome challenges and unlock ways to save more. People want to get their ‘financial house’ in order, so they can truly control their financial stories.”
CUNA Mutual Retirement Solutions is promoting this campaign to more than 6,000 sponsors of defined contribution retirement plans across the country, including small and medium-sized business and credit union clients. Employer resource kits include a set of workplace posters, and employee message and announcement talking points to encourage employees to use the new program.
Retirement plan sponsors and advisors can access links to campaign materials directly on their administrative website at BenefitsForYou.com.