Since November 2010, our recordkeeper has been TIAA. Historically, TIAA had little experience with multiple employer retirement plans and even less with church plans, but this was an area they wanted to expand into. The UUA, together with TIAA, had great hopes for our collaborative relationship.
While our partnership has mostly worked for plan participants, the UUA has experienced serious administrative hurdles working with TIAA. This stems, in part, from the fact that the UUA was the first denominational plan administered by TIAA and we remain the only denominational plan administered by TIAA. (Expected expansion into church plans did not occur.) We recently learned that another large non-denominational church plan has also been informed that TIAA will not renew their contract.
TIAA began to reorganize five years ago, reduced their staffing, and enacted other “efficiencies” which proved more challenging. Last summer, we asked TIAA to “audit” their internal services to our plan. TIAA did so and we were informed by TIAA that they were not going to renew our contract with them. Our plan, by definition, is a qualified church plan, and church plans tend to be more complicated to administer by recordkeepers. TIAA made a business decision to largely withdraw from the faith-based market.