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2026 Financial Advisor Survey

Introduction:

The SPARK Institute is conducting this comprehensive survey to identify the needs of Advisors serving the retirement industry market and how well these needs align to the product and service offerings of record keepers and asset managers.

This survey should take approximately 12–15 minutes to complete. Your individual responses will remain confidential and will be aggregated for reporting and analysis to be shared at the SPARK Forum Nov 15-17, 2026. https://www.sparkinstitute.org/event-list/conferences/spark-forum-2026/.

Please submit your completed survey by Friday, October 16, 2026.

Thank you in advance for your participation and support of SPARK’s mission to foster innovation and operational excellence in the retirement services ecosystem.


Advisor Background
1.Which of the following statements best describes how your advisory practice operates?(Required.)
2.Which of the following titles best describes your role?(Required.)
3.Please roughly estimate what percentage of your client base is made up of the following client segments.
4.What do you need to make your practice more successful?
Very important
Somewhat important
Not important
RFP Tools
Investment Analytics
Fiduciary Services
Planning Tools
Conversation Starters with Business Owners
Lead generation tools
Data Oversight
Monitoring Tools
Participant Data
Retirement plans
5.On average, how often do you engage with your retirement plan clients for a review?
6.When evaluating the record keepers you work with please indicate the importance of each of the following:
Importance Level
AMA (Advisor Managed Account)
Fees
Participant support
Crypto currency offering
Plan sponsor support
Advisor support
Managed accounts
Self-directed brokerage account
Financial wellness programs
Ability to connect 3rd party wellness app into RK platform Importance Level menu
Student loan repayment programs
Emergency savings programs
HSA
Plan data sharing
Participant data sharing
Retirement income products
Cybersecurity & fraud protection
Payroll integration capabilities
Enrollment support
Retirement Income Importance Level menu
Plan participant data access for wellness/prospecting
7.Importance of the following to your plan sponsors:
Importance Level
ESG offering
Offering crypto in plan
Direct indexing
Retirement income
Financial wellness
Private market investments
8.Which payroll firms do your clients use?
180 Feedback
360 Feedback
ADP
Paychex
Payroll DM
Paycor
PayKonnect
Paylocity
Payroll Integration
PrismHR
9.What benchmarking services do you use?
Question for Non-Retirement Specialists
To date almost all tools for advisors in the retirement space have been built for those that specialize in the retirement business.  However, this covers less than ½ of all advisor sold plans in the US.
10.What do generalists need most to help encourage more retirement plan sales?
11.Please select the means through which wealth management clients are sourced through your retirement plan advisory business. Select all that apply.
Managed Accounts
12.What managed account or retirement plan companies do you work with today? (Please select all that apply)
13.In your experience, what are the benefits in offering your clients an advisor managed account over other options? (please select all that apply)
14.When offering an Advisor Managed Account (AMA), which provider do you use?
15.From your perspective, what are the drawbacks of offering clients an advisor managed account over other options? (please select all that apply)
16.Thinking about your experiences with managed account products, please rate the following features according to importance:
Importance Level
Integration with 401k recordkeepers
Integration with my or my company’s CRM tools
Integration with my or my company’s financial planning software
Integration with my or my company’s account aggregator tools
Integration with any account aggregator tools
Participant data transfer
Participant data collection (such as personal details)
Spousal and dependent(s) details
Risk tolerance assessment
Ability for me to change asset allocation
Ability for me to construct portfolios with funds from a plan’s line up
Ability for me to construct portfolios with proprietary funds (outside the plan’s line up)
Ability for me to construct portfolios with other preferred investments (outside the plan’s line up)
Access to model portfolios
Access to model portfolios that I can edit/change
Ability to assign participants to portfolios based on data collected
Portfolio performance data
Portfolio risk analytics
Participant communications (such as messaging)
Automatic document generation
Electronic document signing
Automatic report generation
Adviser managed account
17.Thinking about your client base, how interested are you in adviser managed accounts?
Financial Wellness/Student Loan Repayment/Emergency Savings Programs
18.What financial wellness products do you work with today?
19.In thinking about all of the firms you work with across the industry eco-system which one comes to mind as best in class for the services they provide you?
20.In your experience, what are the benefits in offering your clients financial wellness tools? (please select all that apply)
21.From your perspective, what are the drawbacks of offering clients a Financial Wellness program offered by the record keeper? (please select all that apply)
22.Thinking about your experiences with financial wellness products, please rate the following features according to importance:
Importance Level
Integration with 401k recordkeepers
Integration with my or my company’s CRM tools
Integration with my or my company’s financial planning software
Integration with my or my company’s account aggregator tools
Integration with any account aggregator tools
Participant data transfer
Participant data collection (such as personal details)
Spousal and dependent(s) details
Risk tolerance assessment
Ability for me to change asset allocation
Ability for me to find financial products and solutions for client
Ability for me to construct portfolios with proprietary funds (outside the plan’s line up)
Electronic document signing
Automatic report generation
Data Sharing – Plan & Participant
23.Do you currently work with a 3rd party data aggregator or considering doing so?
24.In thinking about data sharing with record keepers please rate the following features according to importance:
Importance Level
Plan Data Integration with 401k recordkeepers
Participant Data Integration with 401k recordkeepers
Plan Data Integration with my or my company’s CRM tool
Participant Data Integration with my or my company’s CRM tools
Both Plan & Participant Data integrated with my Financial Wellness offering
Participant Data Integration with my or my company’s financial planning software
Participant Data Integration with any account aggregator tools
Management of Beneficiaries
Cybersecurity & fraud protection
25.In thinking about the cybersecurity and fraud protections of the record keepers you work with please rate the following features according to importance:
Importance Level
They adhere to an industry standard for cybersecurity
They provide me easily understood information on their internal cybersecurity controls
They offer cybersecurity training to my Plan Sponsor clients
They offer cybersecurity training to my Plan participants
They rank high in independent industry benchmarks for cybersecurity
They provide regular and sufficient breach notifications
They have proper cybersecurity coverage
SECURE 2.0
26.Regarding SECURE 2.0, which provisions have your retirement plan clients indicated are priorities for their plan(s):
PEPS
27.Do you offer a pooled employer plan (PEP)?
28.If you offer more than one PEP, why do you offer more than one?
29.How many employers are represented by your PEP(s)?
30.What is the average AUM and participant count of the employers in your PEP(s)?
Additional Resources
31.What additional resources could a recordkeeper or third-party administrator provide to help you be a better advisor to employer-sponsored retirement plans?
32.Contact information:(Required.)