Benefitfocus expands its partnership with Transamerica to provide seamless retirement plan enrollment

Benefitfocus, an industry-leading benefits technology platform that simplifies benefits administration for employers, health plans and brokers, has announced an enhanced partnership with Transamerica that enables integrated retirement plan enrollment directly through Benefitplace. This simplified enrollment experience allows employees to quickly enroll in 401(k) and 403(b) retirement plans offered by Transamerica, without the hassle of multiple logins or user names.

Benefitplace is the first integrated benefits administration solution to directly support 401(k) and 403(b) enrollment and management for Transamerica’s plans across all market segments. Employers will be able to manage these plans along with other employee benefits with the simplicity of Benefitplace. Employees will have an optimized user experience, with the ability to enroll in and manage plans directly in the platform.

“Every aspect of our technology solutions is meant to minimize the complexity of employee benefits administration for our employer customers. This means designing a wider range of tools, integrations and partnerships that reduce the administrative burden faced by benefits administrators,” said Steve Swad, Benefitfocus President & CEO. “Financial security is on the minds of most Americans today and this partnership with Transamerica will help employers offer their employees easier access to investment plans that help them protect their future.”

Benefitfocus developed innovative, real-time integration solutions with Transamerica to improve the plan enrollment and management process. In doing so, pairing seamless retirement plan enrollment alongside traditional employee benefits within Benefitplace represented a major step forward in solving important employee engagement challenges, such as low retirement plan participation and contribution rates. Helping employers increase assets in their retirement plans lowers their investment and administrative fees as a percentage of the total investment.

Driving Greater Retirement Plan Participation

Bureau of Labor Statistics National Compensation Survey (NCS) data shows no real change in retirement plan participation in recent years. In 2018, the NCS shows that 81% of full-time employees were offered a retirement plan and only 61% participated.

One of the largest barriers to retirement plan participation cited in industry surveys is ease of access. Having two different platforms to access health care benefits and, separately, retirement benefits, is an impediment to increasing employee engagement and participation, as well as giving employees access to deferral rates that help them secure a better financial future.

“Transamerica is pleased to be expanding our relationship with Benefitfocus. Their customers can now easily enroll in their organization’s retirement plan with Transamerica, as well as other employee benefits that we offer,” said Kent Callahan, CEO of Workplace Solutions at Transamerica. “We focus on the connection between wealth and health to help people achieve a lifetime of financial security. Transamerica’s retirement program and supplemental group insurance policies offer workers financial protection from life’s unexpected hurdles as they build their retirement savings.”