Client statements from defined contribution pension plans recorded the highest industry average among all other segments evaluated this year by research firm Dalbar Inc., beating out the mutual fund, managed portfolio, and brokerage industries.

In keeping with the objective to promote the highest standards in client reporting, Dalbar’s investor statement evaluation criteria underwent a comprehensive review and update this past year. Evolving consumer expectations, changing economic climates, and the advent of new technologies were factored into the update in a bid to raise the level of quality offered by Canadian DC pension plan statements. More importance was paid to the availability of statements with accessible formats, especially relevant to the pension industry.

With redesigned statements from Desjardins Financial Security and Standard Life leading the way, the DC pension plan industry continues to be a source of highly innovative statement features. Dalbar says this is the only industry to implement targeted and client-personalized messaging on a wide scale, as well as introduce goal-tracking features onto the statement.

The top three ranked firms from this year’s study were Desjardins Financial Security, Standard Life, and Sun Life Financial.

Dalbar says the industry displayed a consistently high level of service quality with regard to important account information such as account summary, personal rates of return, and transaction history. In addition, a wealth of value-added information was provided, such as benchmarking, goal-based performance reporting, and customized messaging.

The firm adds that the industry demonstrated that statements with a high degree of investor specificity are implementable, providing firms with the ability to engage investors in ways that generic and basic statements cannot.

Anita Lo, Dalbar’s Vice President of Canadian Strategy comments, “the results from this year’s Defined Contribution Pension Plan study far exceeded our expectations confirming that plan providers are following through on their commitment to improving the participant experience.”

IE