Is Empower Retirement a good company? For many savers and plan sponsors, the answer is often yes—Empower is a major recordkeeper with solid technology, broad plan capabilities, and intuitive participant tools. But whether Empower is “good” for you depends on the design of your specific plan: fees, fund lineup, service, and how well it supports your long-term retirement income strategy.

At Diversified Insurance Brokers, we don’t manage employer retirement plans—we help individuals and business owners evaluate them and coordinate outside solutions. That includes benchmarking Empower plans against other platforms, and comparing your in-plan options with guaranteed income strategies you can access through current annuity rates and other independent tools.

See Your Own Guaranteed Income Benchmark

Even if your 401(k) or 403(b) assets remain at Empower, it can be helpful to compare your projected retirement income against guaranteed lifetime income from annuities. The tool below lets you model lifetime income estimates based on age, starting amount, and timing. Many pre-retirees use this to decide how much to keep in market-based funds inside Empower and how much to shift toward guaranteed income outside the plan.

Who Is Empower Retirement?

Empower is one of the largest retirement-plan recordkeepers in the country. In plain English, that means your employer may hire Empower to handle the day-to-day administration of your workplace plan—tracking contributions, providing online access, keeping statements straight, and delivering participant tools. Empower can serve:

• 401(k) plans for private employers (learn how these work on our How Does a 401(k) Work? page)
• 403(b) plans for schools and non-profits (see How Does a 403(b) Work?)
• Other defined contribution plans, including governmental and small-business arrangements

What you experience as an Empower participant is a combination of their platform and your employer’s decisions: which funds are offered, how much you pay, and what optional features (Roth, automatic increase, managed accounts) have been turned on behind the scenes.

Where Empower Often Stands Out

Empower’s strengths tend to show up in user experience and plan features. Many participants like the way their accounts are presented and how easy it is to see retirement projections at a glance. Some stand-out areas include:

• Participant tools and dashboards: Empower’s interfaces typically include clear balances, projected income estimates, and “what if” savings sliders. Used well, these tools can nudge you to raise savings rates over time and stay on track.
• Support for multiple plan types: If you’ve spent a career moving between employers, there’s a good chance you’ve encountered Empower more than once. That consistency can be helpful when you’re trying to compare old plans before rolling them over via a direct rollover.
• Advisor-friendly structure: Empower often works alongside outside advisors who help employers design plan menus, review fees, and educate employees.

Potential Trade-Offs and Limitations

No recordkeeper is perfect, and it’s important to distinguish between Empower as a company and the specifics of your plan. Common trade-offs to watch for include:

• Plan-by-plan variability: One employer may offer low-cost index funds and transparent fees, while another might have a more expensive lineup—even though both use Empower. That’s why two friends can have very different experiences with the same recordkeeper.
• Service load during busy seasons: Large platforms can encounter longer call-center wait times during market volatility, mergers, or major plan transitions. It’s wise to keep copies of your statements, beneficiary elections, and rollover forms and to confirm dates on any major transactions.
• Investment menu discipline: Many Empower plans offer strong index choices, but some still lean on higher-cost active funds. In those plans, disciplined participants often build portfolios around the index options and minimize exposure to expensive outliers.

How to Evaluate Your Empower Plan Step-by-Step

Instead of asking “Is Empower Retirement a good company?” in the abstract, focus on whether your specific plan is putting you in a strong position. Here’s a practical framework we use when reviewing Empower accounts:

1. Identify your all-in costs. Look at both plan-level administrative fees and the expense ratios on your funds. If you see higher-cost funds when low-cost index alternatives are available, that’s often an easy win.
2. Check your savings rate. For many workers, a combined savings rate (you + employer) of 12%–15% is a reasonable starting target. If you’re far below that, use auto-increase features if available, or consider bumping contributions each year.
3. Review your investment mix. Are you concentrated in a single target-date fund, or scattered across many overlapping funds? Our clients often simplify into a disciplined index mix inspired by firms like Vanguard and Fidelity (see Is Vanguard a Good Company? and Is Fidelity Investments a Good Company?).
4. Coordinate outside accounts. If you have IRAs or prior 401(k)s, consider consolidating with a thoughtful rollover, especially as you transition into retirement. Our guide on how to transfer a 401(k) to an annuity can help you understand when guaranteed income might make sense.
5. Stress-test retirement income. Use Empower’s own retirement tools, then compare those projections to guaranteed income benchmarks you can generate outside the plan. That combination helps you decide how much to leave exposed to market risk and how much to place in stable income.

Using Annuities to Complement an Empower Plan

Is Empower Retirement a Good Company?  Your Empower account is primarily a growth and savings vehicle. As you approach retirement, it often makes sense to ask, “How much of this should stay in investments, and how much should become guaranteed income?” That’s where annuity strategies can complement—not replace—your plan.

Some pre-retirees leave their current employer plan in place while rolling older 401(k) balances into an annuity that provides a guaranteed lifetime paycheck. Others gradually shift funds over several years to reduce sequence-of-returns risk and protect essential expenses. If you’re evaluating that type of move, resources like our Fixed Indexed Annuity Myths Debunked page can help you separate marketing hype from reality.

The key is to protect your retirement floor—housing, food, insurance, and healthcare—while still leaving enough in well-diversified investments to fight inflation and support long-term goals. Our article on how to protect your funds in retirement explains how combining growth assets with guarantees can help manage risk.

Case Example (Illustrative Only)

Imagine a 60-year-old couple with a solid Empower 401(k) plan, mostly invested in low-cost index funds. They like the platform but worry about retiring into a volatile market. After reviewing their statements, we discover:

• Fees are reasonable and the fund lineup is strong.
• They have an older 401(k) from a prior employer sitting in a high-cost, underperforming menu.
• They want at least $3,000 per month of dependable income beyond Social Security.

Instead of moving everything away from Empower, they:

• Keep ongoing contributions in their current Empower plan, staying in the low-cost index mix.
• Roll the old 401(k) balance to an income-focused annuity after reviewing options alongside our retirement income tools.
• Use the annuity to create a guaranteed income floor, then keep the Empower plan as a growth and flexibility bucket.

Result: they maintain the benefits of a familiar, technology-forward platform while adding a predictable income source that doesn’t depend on market performance each year.

How Diversified Insurance Brokers Helps You Evaluate Empower

We don’t replace Empower, and we don’t control your employer’s plan design. Our role is to sit on your side of the table and help you answer questions like:

• Are you saving enough in your Empower plan to reach your retirement goals?
• Is your investment mix appropriate for your age, risk tolerance, and time horizon?
• Should you leave assets in Empower after retirement, or roll some portion out?
• Would shifting part of your balance to a guaranteed-income strategy improve your peace of mind?

We benchmark your Empower plan against outside solutions, model index-based portfolios similar to what investors seek at firms like Charles Schwab and Edward Jones, and illustrate how annuities and other tools might fit into the picture. From there, you can decide whether to keep things as they are, make adjustments inside the plan, or complement Empower with additional strategies outside it.

Related Pages

• Is Vanguard a Good Company?
• Is Fidelity Investments a Good Company?
• Is Charles Schwab a Good Company?
• Is Edward Jones a Good Company?
• How to Protect Your Funds in Retirement