CitiStreet Launches Direction-for-Life Campaign
QUINCY, MA, September 28, 2005 -– With more than 75 million baby boomers approaching retirement, CitiStreet is launching Direction-for-Life™ to highlight its wide ranging and interactive services, while underscoring that they help guide participants throughout their working years and well into retirement.
"We want to help plan sponsors appreciate the vast array of services available and encourage the nearly 10 million participants we serve to take advantage of them," said Lisa Margeson, CitiStreet senior vice president of communications.
"We have 3 million online and personal interactions with participants each month across our divisions. We consider that a significant responsibility and CitiStreet is committed to taking each of these contacts as an opportunity to help a participant make the right choice."
Margeson said CitiStreet has grown significantly in recent years and now offers dozens of services that are available to assist plan participants from their earliest days of employment and then into retirement, an area that used to mark the end of assistance for employees.
"Direction-for-Life gives a clear identity to what CitiStreet does best – bringing innovative and personal products and services together with sound guidance and advice to help employees define and reach their retirement goals," Margeson said. "And we also want to show that the door that once began closing when an employee approached retirement has now been opened wide."
For example, CitiStreet offers a series of Advocacy Programs: a Retiree Advocacy Service that provides one-on-one retirement counseling on such subjects as pension estimates and payment options; a Healthcare Advocacy Service that offers personalized help to resolve health and welfare payroll issues and carrier claims issues; and a Survivor Advocacy program of dedicated individuals trained in the participant's specific benefits, corresponding federal regulations and the grieving process.
Through CitiStreet Advisors, LLC, CitiStreet provides investment guidance, advice and account management services to employees of more than half the firm's retirement plan clients.
"It is gratifying to see that through our delivery of these services we are improving the future financial security of many people," said Ray Martin, CEO of CitiStreet Advisors, LLC. "We are seeing a significant increase in savings, improved diversification and an overall increase in plan satisfaction."
CitiStreet also provides a counseling program called Services for Exiting Participants whereby retirees and former employees can get expert help making decisions on keeping their balances in the plan, rolling to an IRA, converting some of their savings into a monthly income, taking distributions, and other withdrawal options that are available in their retirement plans.
CitiStreet Advisors also provides a life event counseling service uniquely designed for employees nearing and entering retirement. Known as CitiStreet Advice for Retiring Employees (CARE), the service provides counseling and decision support in all key financial areas during the transition from the work world to retirement.
Margeson also noted that, at the other end of the spectrum, sponsors now have far more tools to target younger workers, who often are reticent to participate in retirement savings and planning. Those younger workers include the first wave of Generation Y, those born between 1977 and 1995, which at 70 million strong is nearly as large as the baby boom generation.
She cited an ever-expanding online personal resource center that participants can customize to their needs; communications built around employee demographics and workforce culture; combined DC/DB account statements and personalized projection mailings; e-messages targeted to specific employee demographics such as age; and onsite group workshops on retirement planning and investments, as well as individual onsite appointments to review long-term scenarios of various savings and investing strategies.
"Creating a plan to last a lifetime is not a single, one-time event. Instead, a successful strategy must be flexible enough to evolve over time and change course whenever necessary. By putting all of our tools to work, we not only help plan sponsors inform their employees, but help them provide guidance and motivation through all the years of service and into retirement, thus providing Direction-for-Life," said Margeson.
About CitiStreet
CitiStreet, one of the largest global benefits delivery firms in the United States, is headquartered in Quincy, Mass. CitiStreet has 3,000 employees at offices in Somerset, N.J., Jacksonville, Fla., Lewiston, Maine, Boston and field offices around the nation. It also has a division, CitiStreet Australia, with offices in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne. CitiStreet serves more than 9 million participants and administers approximately $215 billion in assets in the United States for defined contribution, defined benefit and health and welfare plans of corporate, government, health care, Taft-Hartley and not-for-profit organizations. It also serves about 1 million participants and administers about $9 billion in assets outside the United States. CitiStreet is a 50/50 joint venture between State Street Corp. (NYSE:STT) and Citigroup (NYSE:C). For more CitiStreet information, visit the Web site at www.citistreetonline.com.
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