Which industries offer the most and least generous benefits focused on DC (defined contribution) plans? An industry market researcher looked at various plan designs to come up with a score to rate benefit plans by industry.
Most generous industries include:
| 1 | Insurance/Reinsurance |
| 2 | Oil and gas/Energy |
| 3 | Aerospace/Defense |
| 4 | Membership organizations |
| 5 | Utilities |
Least generous are:
| 44 | Wholesale |
| 45 | Restaurants/Food service |
| 46 | Media/Communications |
| 47 | Advertising/Marketing |
| 48 | Automotive: Dealerships/svc |
Criteria used for the rankings include:
- Immediate eligibility
- Immediate vesting
- Retiree healthcare
- Match
- Profit sharing
Few of the highest ranking industry topped any particular category achieving top results by doing well overall. The highest ranking for immediate eligibility was labor unions while law firms topped profit sharing and Fortune 1000 offered the highest percentage of retiree healthcare. Lower ranked industries like the food and beverage market include low paid workers who have relatively low tenure.
Brightscope also offers ratings of plans by feature by company for no cost to plan sponsors.
Takeaways? Plan sponsors should not look at their plans in a vacuum comparing themselves not just to other plans in their industry but also plans of similar size. We find that though no employer wants to offer the worst DC plan driven not just by the law, they also don’t necessarily want to offer the best one either.
