What the companies gave us

In our corporate test (read Where to put your money), nearly all our testers received individualized cover pages from the advisers who generated their plans, reflecting the one-on-one conversations they might have had if they'd met in real life. The plans estimated what the testers over a decade away from retirement—Carolee, Curtis, and Thomas and Jean—still needed to add to savings yearly or monthly to reach their goals.

For all our testers, the plans compared new, recommended mixes of assets—stocks, bonds, cash, for instance—to the testers' current portfolio. To determine the likely success of the recommendations, all the companies used Monte Carlo simulation, which analyzes a portfolio in light of hundreds of possible market scenarios. All the plans provided steps intended to help testers improve their retirement prospects.

Here's more detail on what we got from the individual companies:

Charles Schwab
Schwab provided individualized notes from an adviser, a portfolio assessment, and a retirement assessment for each tester. Younger testers got estimates of how much they would need to save to meet their goals. Schwab included numerous graphs and charts detailing, among other things, how long the testers' assets were likely to last in retirement and how they might be drawn down. Schwab also offered two separate retirement assessments for Thomas and Jean, as well as education-funding reports for their two children.

Our judges found Schwab's asset allocations to be generally appropriate. Clients with more assets got larger, more in-depth plans. Judges liked Schwab's planning assumptions and found that the plans appropriately identified testers' goals. But Schwab's action items in the body of its plan were sometimes deemed generic. The plans were very long and sometimes confusing, our judges said.

Citibank
Citi calls the advice service it used in our test "Clarity." The typical investor who uses Clarity has a minimum of $250,000 in investable assets.

Each tester's executive summary included a schedule outlining short-, medium- and long-term actions. Citi's plans also touched on non-investment advice related to insurance and estate-planning issues, though not in detail. A financial-needs analysis outlined testers' net worth, cash flow, and their ability to fund projected needs in retirement. An investment proposal detailed various characteristics of the recommended portfolios.

One of our judges—Diahann Lassus, CFP, CPA/PFS, president and chief investment officer of Lassus Wherley, a fee-only financial-planning company in New Providence, N.J., and Bonita Springs, Fla.—said she liked the fact that the Citi plan was more comprehensive (though Citibank acknowledges that its plans lack certain elements of a comprehensive plan, such as an insurance review). Citi proposed fees for continued management of assets for some of the testers.

Our judges said the plans generally addressed client goals. Recommendations were generally detailed and structured. Advisers asked good follow-up questions. The judges found the client questionnaire to be excessive, though its definitions included a superior discussion of risk tolerance and risk vs. reward.

Fidelity Investments
Fidelity gave each tester a page of adviser notes and suggestions, a portfolio review, and a recommendation document: Retirement QuickCheck for Carolee, and Thomas and Jean, Retirement Income Planner for Don, and David and Joanne. Curtis, the youngest tester, received a very short recommendation based on rebalancing his portfolio; a Fidelity spokesman said the focus for Curtis was on ensuring he was using the proper investment strategies. Retirement Income Planner provided mainly generic advice to "put your plan in motion"—such as rebalancing and consolidating accounts, consulting a tax expert, giving to charity—and to manage income in retirement. Portfolio Review offered detailed, hypothetical buy-sell recommendations. Fidelity's plans also estimated how long the testers' assets were likely to last in retirement.

Our judges said the plans' asset allocations and most recommendations were appropriate. In many cases, recommendations included Fidelity funds. (A Fidelity spokesperson said the recommended Fidelity index funds had the lowest expense ratios available.) Judges said advisers asked good follow-up questions. But they found the plans had little personalization and not enough detailed suggestions for action.

T. Rowe Price
T. Rowe Price's plans were the shortest of those our testers received. Depending on the testers' situations, the reports included information such as: comparison of current and proposed asset allocation, advice on moving assets toward the proposed allocation; a generic "action plan"; representative investment choices from T. Rowe Price's menu of funds; advice on how much to withdraw monthly from retirement savings in the first year of retirement; and a discussion of the benefits of waiting to withdraw.

Our judges found the plans generally clear and easy to read. Advisers asked good follow-up questions. But the plans dealt only with building funds for retirement, not for other goals. (A T. Rowe Price planner told us that the company's software is designed only to address retirement and asset allocation.) And the judges highlighted a need for more personalized, step-by-step plans for implementation. The T. Rowe Price planner told us that the company only would provide written investment recommendations at the asset level—large-cap, small cap, international, for instance.

T. Rowe Price also included a useful retirement guide including research-based articles on saving for, approaching, and living in retirement.