TIAA Financial Services

"Had to enroll due to company matching policy. I can confirm TIAA provide some of the worst retirement options. With any equity options expense ratios are super high compare to any other company. Their money market fund is not insured at all. Final nail in the coffin is the traditional, good luck taking money out of it. It will take 10 years to rollover the money and during this 10 years withdrawn period you do not earn any interest at all."

"My experience was terrible. I have more money in taxable accounts than I do with TIAA-CREF, but the “advisor” didn't even want to know what my other investments were. I should be holding all my bonds in the tax deferred accounts, and all equities or stocks in the taxable accounts, but this clown had no clue."

"Thanks to James Scully for helping plan and establish my RMD. This was done over the phone, a big help these days, while we both viewed forms via computer. He made the whole process exceptionally easy. He has excellent communication and interpersonal skills, the result being that all my questions were answered and I felt very comfortable with my decisions. My experience with TIAA over many years and several states has been very positive, but James certainly ranks as one of the best consultants I have spoken with."

"Disclaimer: IANA investment professional, just someone who’s been working to avoid outliving her savings for 30 years.Use advice at your own risk. This is not the TIAA-CREF of the 1980s and 1990s, and the company’s been dinged repeatedly in recent years for charging excess fees and steering clients into investments that benefit the company rather than the client. When you go to this office, you are not working with a certified financial planner who’s there to look out for you. Nor are you working with someone who represents UI. You’re working with a salesperson for TIAA-CREF, which is a for-profit company. You may also be working with someone who has a questionable background. I chose one of their “wealth managers” at random, looked up his court records, and found that he had a considerable petty record of everything from underage alcohol possession to repeated disregard of traffic laws: no seat belt, heavy speeding, running lights. Do you really want someone this careless to be advising you on what you’re doing with your retirement money? I don’t. If you talk with someone in this office, dig into their background first. Find out: are they clean? Do they actually know anything about investing, or are they just repeating whatever sales pitch they learned that morning? What are their quotas for whatever product they’re trying to convince you to invest in? What is their educational background? Thanks to agreements made a couple of years ago (after TIAA was on the hook for overcharging fees), TIAA offers a few options to UI employees that are very vanilla, but are reasonable and low-fee, meaning your money doesn’t bleed away into TIAA pockets. Look for index funds with the lowest management fees; if you want safety rather than yield, one of the funds they offer is largely US government bonds, though keep in mind that you’re buying shares in a bond fund rather than the bonds themselves, and the prices of the shares can go up and down. Plan to spend a few days going through their options. It’s not an accident that it’s difficult to sort these things out on their website. But be persistent. Maybe someday we’ll have the option of doing self-directed 403(b) investment. Until then, at least we’re not at the mercy of IPERS and the question of its future ability to meet its obligations. Above all, educate yourself. Learn what mutual funds are and how they work. Learn what annuities are and what the rules are (and read all those tiny words, and make sure you understand them) before you allow them to sell you an annuity. Look into the long-term impact of the fees charged by each fund (there are calculators you can use online — they’ll graph it out for you, and you’ll be shocked by how much money you’re losing to management fees). Read the fund prospectuses to see what they actually invest in — TIAA doesn’t make it easy for you to find those online, but they’re there. And take a look at how those funds do, relative to the indexes. And be aware of when you’re allowed to move the money away from TIAA. Don’t let them take your money by using their age-bracket funds. Do your own homework instead. It’s not that difficult. Figure out what mix of investments suits you given how much you can reasonably risk and how many years you have left to make up any potential losses. And then choose the lowest-fee reasonable-historical-yield options you can within each mix segment. Finally, if you’re going to save extra, don’t save it with TIAA. Find a low/no-fee brokerage, start an IRA there — probably a Roth, so you won’t pay taxes on your gains — and have access to a much much wider set of investments, including stocks, CDs, and a much wider family of funds. Educate yourself and protect the money you’re earning. You’re probably not earning a lot at UI, so take care of what you’ve got. The way things work now, it’s on you."

"By contrast, I have had a wonderful experience with TIAA. Our financial advisor is easy to get in touch with, and he knows his stuff. Having a local office makes accessing TIAA services even more convenient and efficient. The website is easy to navigate, as well. My overall rating is very positive."