Legacy provision nearly doubled near-retirees' interest in an annuity in a $500,000 scenario: DCIIA study for Allspring

A legacy provision nearly doubled near-retirees' interest in an annuity in a $500,000 scenario, according to a DCIIA study conducted for Allspring.

The same study found 70% of near-retirees say they trust their employer on plan design, and 56% expect to move workplace savings at retirement.

Stated interest in a scenario is not an election, and the near-doubling measures a choice put to survey respondents rather than a share of participants who bought a guarantee. The figures do not define what the legacy provision is.

Trust in the employer's plan design and the expectation of moving savings at retirement answer separate questions. The first is a read on the plan's credibility; the second is a bet on exit behavior. Nothing in the figures ties the two together, and a plan that reads trust as a reason to widen its income menu would not know from this study how many participants use it.

In the study's framing, the plan's own design is the variable, not a description of an annuity in the abstract. A near-retiree answering a $500,000 scenario is not the same as a participant choosing at retirement, and the gap between those two moments is where election rates get decided.