Towers Watson: Pension Plans Outdid 401(k) Plans in Slump

Defined benefit pension plans seem to have outperformed defined contribution retirement plans in most years since the end of the dot-com boom.

Towers Watson & Company, New York (NYSE:TW), makes a case for that conclusion in an analysis of Form 5500 plan data filed with the U.S. Department of Labor through 2008 and a separate analysis of results from 97 large plan sponsors that are on the firm’s list of the 100 biggest defined benefit plan sponsors.

When the firm looked at the results for 2008 and earlier, it focused on employers that sponsor just one defined benefit plan and one 401(k) plan, each with at least 100 participants.

Defined benefit plans in the sample generated higher investment returns than the defined contribution plans studied from 2001 to 2008, the firm found.

In 2008, the relatively conservative investment mix in defined benefit pension plans helped them hold their investment drop to about 23%, compared with a drop of about 26% for the defined contribution plans. Similarly, performance was about 2.25 percentage points better at defined benefit plans during the 2000-2002 slump than at defined contribution plans, the firm says.