The Allegations and TIAA’s Response

On August 2, 2024, NBC News published an article providing information on a whistleblower’s allegations against TIAA, who filed a complaint with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

The article states that TIAA, via their TIAA Retirement Advisor Field View tool (the online advice tool) and the advise of the financial consultants, leads participants to invest in their in-house investment products, specifically the TIAA Traditional and TIAA Real Estate products.  These products generate higher revenues for TIAA, which the article hypothesizes TIAA is utilizing to help cover financial losses they have experienced. It projects that this emphasis expresses a focus of TIAA self-interest vs. those of their participants.

On that same day, TIAA sent an email to the plan administrators of the institutions they provide services to. They state they disagree with the assertions that TIAA is putting its own interest ahead of participants, and stressed their efforts are to help participants achieve better outcomes in retirement.  They stand behind their consultants and advice tool, provided by third-party Morningstar Investment Management.

Their view is the the article misrepresents the tool, takes comments out of context, and presents a misleading portrait of their adherence to regulatory requirements to place clients first.

“TIAA works very hard to earn and keep clients’ and participants’ trust. We believe in the importance of advice in helping your participants achieve better outcomes in retirement, and we take great care to deliver advice that is in their best interest.”

They provided that their advice program complies with the Department of Labor’s advisory opinion (2001-09A), known as the SunAmerica opinion.

They also said, “With no public shareholders, and a charter that requires TIAA to operate without profit, TIAA is uniquely able to return profits to TIAA Traditional policy holders and reinvest in our business for future sharing.”

WSU’s Next Steps

WSU will monitor the situation; updates on this topic will be published to this website if/when they are available.

Steps we are looking into at this time include: 

  • Providing educational presentations on investment products, and how to interpret/  understand their associated fees/costs and how those impact retirement savings.
  • Investigate obtaining a financial consultant to advise the university and the Investment Review and Plan Oversight Advisory Committee.
  • Ensuring WSU employees are aware of the Deferred Compensation Plan, a 457b plan, which is administered by the state’s Department of Retirement Systems, and an alternative/additional option to the VIP.
  • Other options/ideas will be investigated/reviewed.