OneAmerica® Survey Underscores the Important Role of Parents in Financial Education

56 percent of survey respondents learned about finances from parents

INDIANAPOLIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--A majority of retirement plan participants responded in a recent survey that they learned about finances from their parents, according to the American United Life Insurance Company^® (AUL), a OneAmerica company, which announced the results of its retirement participant survey today. Fifty-six percent of respondents reported learning about finances from their parents, choosing from a list that also included books, a teacher or other family members. Younger adults between the ages of 20 and 30 were even more likely (71 percent) to have learned from parents.

“These findings tell us that there’s opportunity for our industry to fill in knowledge gaps”

“Parents should take these findings to heart and understand the tremendous role they play in the financial literacy of their children,” said Marsha Whitehead, vice president of marketing communications for the retirement services division. “They should understand how important it is that they, themselves, understand finances and the basics of retirement, knowing their children are learning from them.”

The companies of OneAmerica recently surveyed visitors to its participant website to determine how they learned about finances and prepared for retirement, what resources are most effective and how confident they are with their retirement preparations. 6,360 participants responded to the online survey, which OneAmerica plans to replicate in coming years to gauge progress in helping participants prepare for a secure retirement.

Whitehead also says the OneAmerica companies’ recently launched participant education program, “One Day is Today,” is designed to help participants take a fresh, serious look at their own retirement situation.

“These findings tell us that there’s opportunity for our industry to fill in knowledge gaps,” added Whitehead. “We need to pool our resources and help parents raise financially literate children. Better educating participants about their own retirement plans could have a ripple effect on future generations of retirement plan participants.”

About OneAmerica
OneAmerica Financial Partners, Inc. (www.oneamerica.com), headquartered in Indianapolis, Ind., has companies that can trace their solid foundations back more than 135 years in the insurance and financial services marketplace.

OneAmerica’s nationwide network of companies offers a variety of products to serve the financial needs of their policyholders and other clients. These products include retirement plan products and services; individual life insurance, annuities, long-term care solutions and employee benefit plan products. The goal of OneAmerica is to blend the strengths of each company to achieve greater collective results.

The products of the OneAmerica companies are distributed through a network of employees, agents, brokers and other distribution sources that are committed to increasing value to our policyholders by helping them prepare to meet their financial goals.

All group variable annuity contracts are issued by American United Life Insurance Company^® (AUL), One American Square, P.O. Box 368, Indianapolis, IN 46206-0368, 1-800-249-6269. Registered group variable annuity contracts are distributed by OneAmerica Securities, Inc., Member FINRA, SIPC, a Registered Investment Advisor, 433 N. Capitol Ave., Indianapolis, IN 46204, 1-877-285-3863, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of AUL.