I’m delighted to announce my new role as head of strategic partnerships for John Hancock. In this position, I’ll focus on strengthening our relationships with broker-dealers, registered investment advisers, TPAs, and other key partners in the retirement industry. My goal is to continue our commitment to being your partner of choice and to support you in navigating the evolving retirement landscape.

In line with this vision, we recently launched FutureStep™, our new retirement plan solution for small businesses, offered in collaboration with Vestwell. Be sure to check out our newsletter article, “Introducing FutureStep,” to learn more.

I hope your year is off to an equally productive start.

Regards,

Abigail Benham
Vice President, National Accounts
John Hancock Retirement

We’re thrilled to announce FutureStep™, our new open-architecture offering for small businesses. It’s the latest addition to our suite of retirement plan solutions, which also includes Signature, Signature Fiduciary Connect, and our mid/large open-architecture product.

FutureStep is a digital, advisor-centric retirement plan option developed in collaboration with Vestwell, an established employer and individual savings platform. It's designed to help financial professionals scale their practices while providing a simple, modern interface for seamless interactions.

Key features include:

• Competitive pricing and high-touch service
• Support for personalized onboarding, ongoing administration, and maintenance
• Robust payroll integration options
• Assistance in navigating legislation

We expect it to be available in the first half of 2025. For more information, check out our press release.

FutureStep exemplifies our commitment to partner with intermediaries to make it easier for sponsors to offer a retirement plan that can lead to better outcomes. Our diverse range of plans—including defined contribution, defined benefit, cash balance, and Taft-Hartley—enables financial professionals to craft retirement plan solutions tailored to their clients' unique needs.

We've enhanced our award-winning¹ participant engagement program, It's about time, to help motivate workers to take charge of their retirement planning. Here’s what’s new:

• Targeted emails for 50+ participants—Participants ages 50 and older will receive a series of emails featuring our achieving retirement balance tools and resources to help them enjoy today while planning for tomorrow.
• Education for terminated participants—Those with an account balance will receive our financial well-being quarterly and distribution-related emails to help them make informed decisions about their retirement savings.
• Beneficiary reminder—Participants who haven't named a beneficiary will get an additional reminder during the anniversary month of their enrollment.
• Exclusive webinars for Taft-Hartley members—Throughout the year, our retirement specialists will host exclusive webinars on key retirement topics tailored specifically to union workers.

Learn more about our program and view sample communications at our It’s about time web page.

With more than $1 billion in assets,² state-sponsored retirement plans are helping close the retirement savings gap. But that’s not the only thing they’re doing. Thanks to these plans, many small business owners are now more open to setting up their own 401(k)³—creating an opportunity for financial professionals to gain traction in the small plan market.

Here are three other things we’ve learned so far:

1 Workers in state-facilitated programs tend to contribute less.

2 Employers with existing plans are staying put.

3 401(k)s allow greater flexibility compared to these programs.

Check out our state-facilitated retirement plans web page for tips and resources that can help financial professionals support small business owners.

What factors could drive the economy and financial markets in 2025? Our investment and economic outlooks can help financial professionals navigate this question with plan sponsors and participants.

• Q1 2025 Market Intelligence
• 2025 outlook—resist turning up the volume
• Five macroeconomic themes for 2025
• Here come the tariffs: why it’s too soon to draw conclusions

Financial professionals can reach out to their John Hancock representative if they’d like to learn more.

Did you know that women typically live six years longer than men?⁴ These extra years mean women not only need to stretch their retirement savings further but could also control a significant portion of the $84 trillion Great Wealth Transfer. Yet only 28% currently work with a financial professional.⁵ Abigail Benham, head of strategic partnerships, shares her insight on the untapped opportunity this presents for financial professionals and offers valuable tips on how to connect with female retirement plan participants.