The winners are made up of long-term industry leaders that, over the years have been joined by other service oriented financial companies. Putnam Investments, with 14 years of award winning service and Hartford Life, with a decade of achieving top honors are veterans in leading the financial services industry in the quality of service to their customers.  

Alongside Putnam Investments and Hartford Life, Evergreen Investments and Seligman Funds form the old guard of outstanding industry leaders with 8 plus years of consecutive and formidable showing. Over the last six years, this elite group was joined by AEGON/Transamerica, BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, Guardian Insurance, JPMorgan Funds, Lord, Abbett & Co., New York Life, Pacific Life, PLANCO, Primerica, RiverSource, RS Investments, Sun Life Financial, Thrivent Financial for Lutherans and Travelers Life & Annuity.  

Of note as well is 1st Global as the only broker/dealer to earn top honors.

“These firms’ proven service performance underscores that there is an institutional imperative to serve customers well and that this can only succeed when it is an inherent management priority,” said Kathleen Whalen, Managing Director at Dalbar.

The service awards are based on systematic testing of customer service over the year. Dalbar uses thousands of tests to measure how financial companies respond to the needs for service from their customers. Companies that exceed a variety of industry benchmarks after one year of testing earn the Dalbar Service Award.

The following table provides a list of all firms that were recipients of Dalbar’s 2005 Service Award for each category.

Dalbar 2005 Service Award Winners

Mutual Funds

BlackRock (6)
Evergreen Investments (8)
The Hartford (3)
Transamerica/IDEX (6)
JPMorgan Funds (5)
Lord, Abbett & Co. (4)
New York Life Investment Management Service Co. (5)
Primerica Shareholder Services (3)
Putnam Investments (14)
RS Investments (2)
Seligman Funds (9)
Thrivent Financial for Lutherans (1)

Annuities

AEGON/Transamerica (2)
Guardian Insurance & Annuity (5)
The Hartford (10)
New York Life - MainStay Annuities (6)
New York Life Insurance (3)
Putnam Investments (9)
RiverSource (2)
Thrivent Financial for Lutherans (2)
Travelers Life & Annuity (2) 

Life Insurance

Hartford Life Insurance (5)
Thrivent Financial for Lutherans (1)

Retirement Plans

The Hartford (3) 

Financial Intermediaries - Post-sale

 1st Global (3)
BlackRock (5)
Evergreen Investments (1)
Goldman Sachs (6)
The Hartford (4)
Lord, Abbett & Co. (3)
Pacific Life (3)
Putnam Investments (9)
RiverSource (1)
Seligman Funds (6)
Sun Life Financial (1)
Transamerica Capital (3)

Financial Intermediaries - Pre-sale

Evergreen Investments (3)
JPMorgan Funds (5)
PLANCO
    Hartford Director (2)
    Hartford Leaders (2)
Putnam Investments (9)

NOTE: The numbers in parentheses represent the number of times the organization has earned the Service Award.

Concurrently, Dalbar named the financial service institutions that are Key Honors winners in 2005. Companies that meet industry benchmarks after one year of testing earn Dalbar Key Honors.  In 2005, Guardian Investor Services was the only firm to achieve this distinction.

Dalbar 2005 Key Honors Winner

Mutual Funds

Guardian Investor Services

The Mutual Fund, Annuity, Life Insurance and Retirement Plan categories represent service provided to consumers of these products. The Financial Intermediary categories represent service provided to professionals who advise investors.

Dalbar, Inc., the nation’s leading financial services market research and consulting firm, is committed to raising the standards of excellence in the financial services industry. With offices in both the US and Canada, Dalbar develops standards for, and provides research, ratings, and rankings of intangible factors to the mutual fund, broker/dealer, life insurance, property and casualty, and managed account industries. They include investor behavior, customer satisfaction, service quality, communications, Internet services, and financial professional ratings.