P&I announces 2022 Eddy Award winners

Fifty defined contribution plan communications campaigns were recognized Tuesday at Pensions & Investments' 2022 Eddy Awards held in Orlando, Fla., as part of P&I's annual Defined Contribution East Conference.

Plan sponsors and their service providers were recognized for diverse communications campaigns covering everything from fee disclosures to true-up contributions and the importance of two-factor authentication.

This year's competition featured a category for COVID-19-related special projects, which drew six first-place winners. The other six categories were: plan conversions, financial wellness, plan transitions, pre-retirement preparation, special projects and ongoing investment education.

First-place winners in each category are listed below. The full list of winners can be found here.

In the conversions category, EBSCO Industries and its service provider, Principal Financial Group, won first place for corporate plans, while the University of San Francisco (TIAA-CREF) won first place for not-for-profit/other plans.

In the financial wellness category, two corporate sponsors landed first-place awards: OCLC (Lincoln Financial Group) for corporate plans with less than 1,000 employees and Facebook (now Meta) for those with more than 5,000 employees. Ohio Public Employees Deferred Compensation Program (Nationwide) took first place for public plans with more than 5,000 employees.

In the plan transitions category, AVANGRID (Fidelity Investments) nabbed the top Eddy award for corporate plans.

Two sponsors snatched first-place wins in the pre-retirement preparation category: ABA Retirement Funds Program (Voya Financial) for not-for-profit/other plans with more than 5,000 employees and the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board for public plans with more than 5,000 employees.

The special projects category produced a slew of first-place winners, including the Bank of New York Mellon (Voya Financial) for corporate plans with more than 5,000 employees. Applied Industrial Technologies (Principal) and Mountaire (Lincoln Financial Group) tied for first place for corporate plans with 1,000 to 5,000 employees. The other first-place winners were RWJBarnabas Health for not-for-profit/other plans; Milwaukee Transport Services (OneAmerica) for public plans with less than 1,000 employees; Missouri State Employees' Retirement System for public plans with more than 5,000 employees; and IATSE (Principal) for union plans.

Special projects COVID-19

The category of COVID-19 special projects also logged many first-place winners, among them two corporate sponsors: ProHealth Care (Transamerica) for plans with 1,000 to 5,000 employees and Nestle USA for plans with more than 5,000 employees. New York-Presbyterian Hospital (Prudential Retirement) was awarded first place for not-for-profit/other plans with more than 5,000 employees; University Health Care System (Transamerica) for not-for-profit/other plans with 1,000 to 5,000 employees; and Maryland Supplemental Retirement Plans (Nationwide) and NYC Health & Hospitals (Prudential) tied for first place in public plans with more than 5,000 employees.

In the ongoing investment education category, Blue Cross Blue Shield Association (State Street Global Advisors) reeled in a first-place award for not-for-profit/other plans, while Kentucky Deferred Compensation received the top award for public plans with more than 5,000 employees.

In addition to honoring sponsors and their service providers, the Eddy Awards judges also recognized generic education efforts by service providers.

Francis Investment Counsel and MetLife tied for first in financial wellness; Principal placed first in plan transitions; T. Rowe Price ranked first in special projects; and Vanguard Group received first place in the COVID-19 special projects category.