Helping workers prepare for a dignified retirement

Adapted from an article originally published at planadviser.com.

Many workers feel anxious about and unprepared for retirement despite being enrolled in a qualified retirement plan. In his new role as President of Nationwide® Retirement Solutions, Kevin Jestice wants the company to take a leadership role in dispelling workers’ unease about their retirement readiness. He says his strategic vision is founded on answering this fundamental question: "How do we help Americans save for, prepare for and thrive in a dignified retirement?"

Jestice feels that Nationwide, which will celebrate its 100th anniversary in 2026, is uniquely qualified to take on this leadership role, thanks to its deep roots in Main Street America. "We have a connection to everyday Americans, and that affects the way we deliver on our company mission, which is to protect people, businesses and futures with extraordinary care. In our retirement business, we do that by serving and protecting most people’s greatest asset from what is now their greatest fear: running out of money before they run out of time." A recent Nationwide Retirement Institute® survey found that 74% of Americans fear outliving their financial resources.

In Nationwide’s 2025 Economic Impact Survey, 40% of respondents said they delayed or canceled plans for major purchases — such as vacations or cars — during the year because of economic conditions. In addition, 21% of consumers said they delayed or canceled plans for major life milestones such as getting married, having children or retiring.

"We see Americans live on paychecks — not a large sum of money in an account — and fewer are covered by a defined benefit plan than before, which leads to concern about steady, reliable income in retirement," Jestice says. He cites a statistic that fewer than 15% of Americans have access to a defined benefit (DB) plan.¹ With the switch from DB to defined contribution (DC) plans, the risk of not having enough income in retirement is now on the saver instead of their employer.

As a plan sponsor, you are uniquely positioned to influence better outcomes through plan design, education and access to income‑focused solutions through partnership with your plan provider.

"There are 3 important things participants need to do: Enroll in the plan, save enough in the plan and invest their savings properly," Jestice says. "If we help them do those 3 things really, really well, it will set most of them up for a good, dignified retirement." He says plan sponsors play a crucial role in making it easy for participants to do those things.

"It sounds easy, right? But saving enough, that’s really difficult, particularly with the economic challenges I mentioned," Jestice says. That’s where education is key. When plan sponsors partner with Nationwide to educate participants on how to really get the most out of their plan, then we begin to see them making positive decisions concerning their retirement savings and investments.

Then, it’s important to help participants protect their retirement income.

To help determine whether their participant base needs a protected retirement income solution, Jestice suggests that plan sponsors start with the basics. "Ask employees whether they expect to have enough guaranteed income, be it through a defined benefit pension or Social Security, to cover their essentials in retirement," Jestice says. "To do that, employees need education on what the essentials in retirement are."

"The reality is that a lot of people have a lot of expenses they carry into retirement — such as a mortgage, maybe property taxes, things like health care costs, homeowners insurance, maybe a car payment — in addition to basic things like groceries and utilities," Jestice notes. "These are fixed expenses in retirement, and making sure there is enough guaranteed income to cover the fixed expenses will help employees sleep at night."

If a plan sponsor feels that their employees may not have enough guaranteed income to cover these essentials, then it may be worth exploring ways through the retirement plan to help close the gap — such as offering lifetime income funds that can be added to the plan’s investment lineup.

Jestice says Nationwide has multiple in-plan lifetime income solutions in the market, both through plans for which Nationwide is the recordkeeper and on the platforms of several other recordkeepers.

"As an enterprise, we’re an insurer, a fund manager and a recordkeeper, so we have multiple tools and capabilities we can bring to plan sponsors and their participants," Jestice says. "Importantly, we have the end-to-end expertise in these solutions."

Jestice also points out that Nationwide has financial stability. "We are a 100-year-old company," he says. “We have incredibly strong risk management capabilities as a leading insurance company, and that really matters when you’re making promises to participants for decades."

Nationwide offers a suite of lifetime income solutions, each structured as target date fund collective investment trusts. This means they are institutionally priced and can serve as a plan’s qualified default investment alternative. Jestice adds that Nationwide’s solutions prioritize full participant liquidity.

"We can give people access to a reliable, dependable income stream in retirement in a variety of ways with a variety of solutions while making sure that, ultimately, the participant experience is simple and flexible,” he says.