More than Half of Retirement Plan Participants in Favor of Automatic Annual Increase

Fifty-five percent of retirement plan participants who took a recent survey by American United Life Insurance Company^® (AUL), a OneAmerica company, said they would favor automatic annual increases to their contributions.

“With non-stop family, health and life events and changing financial obligations over the course of one’s life, saving for retirement can easily fall to the bottom of the priority list,” said Marsha Whitehead, vice president of marketing for retirement services for the companies of OneAmerica. “Automatic features can help plan participants easily increase their retirement contributions and not get distracted by other financial matters.”

Survey respondents ranked several financial priorities that compete with their retirement account contributions including: paying off debt (29 percent), day-to-day expenses (23 percent), taking care of family (11 percent) and saving for college (4 percent) among others.

The companies of OneAmerica surveyed visitors to its retirement plan participant website to better understand behaviors and resources that might help them prepare for retirement. 7,545 participants responded to the survey.

“Automatically increasing the contribution amount each year helps address inflation and cost of living increases,” said Whitehead. “We want to encourage participants to save as much as they can for retirement. When coupled with educational tools and materials, a feature like this can really help participants stay focused and disciplined in planning and saving for retirement.”

The companies of OneAmerica were recognized by Allianz Global Investors Center for Behavior Finance for best practices in behavioral science including use of automatic enrollment and increase features.

“With 29 percent of respondents unsure how they feel about auto-increase features and 19 percent saying they would opt out of the feature, we still have work to do to educate consumers about the importance of calculating how much retirement income they need and contributing enough to their retirement accounts to meet those needs,” added Whitehead.

About the OneAmerica Participant Survey

This summary infographic provides survey methodology and additional insights.

About AUL

American United Life Insurance Company^® (AUL) is the founding member of OneAmerica^® and is focused on providing a strong portfolio of products for individuals, families and businesses. AUL provides local service through a national network of experienced professionals utilizing an extensive menu of financial products, including retirement plan products and services, life insurance, annuities and employee benefit plan products. The company helps consumers prepare for tomorrow by helping to protect their financial futures.

About OneAmerica

OneAmerica Financial Partners, Inc. (www.oneamerica.com), headquartered in Indianapolis, Ind., has companies that can trace their solid foundations back more than 135 years in the insurance and financial services marketplace.

OneAmerica’s nationwide network of companies offers a variety of products to serve the financial needs of their policyholders and other clients. These products include retirement plan products and services; individual life insurance, annuities, long-term care solutions and employee benefit plan products. The goal of OneAmerica is to blend the strengths of each company to achieve greater collective results.

The products of the OneAmerica companies are distributed through a network of employees, agents, brokers and other distribution sources that are committed to increasing value to our policyholders by helping them prepare to meet their financial goals.

Visit the OneAmerica Newsroom or follow @OneAmericaNews on Twitter for more information.