TIAA Financial Services

Came to their new location today. Receptionist was on a personal call the entire time -- even through checking me in. She was complaining about some family member and even did an impression of this person. I waited for 3 min right outside the door to get buzzed in because she wasn't paying attention then I took a seat as no direction was given. She snapped at me to sign in...while she proceeded to talk on the phone. How unprofessional!!! The actual advisors are much more helpful, so I can't fault them for this but such a complete turn off when you're supposed to be representing your company....

Disclaimer: IANA investment professional, just someone who’s been working to avoid outliving her savings for 30 years.Use advice at your own risk.nnThis 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.nnWhen 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?nnThanks 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.nnPlan 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.nnMaybe 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.nnDon’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.nnFinally, 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.nnEducate 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.

Worst and horrible customer service experience while having my excess retirement contributions refunded while having transferred to the call center- making me go about round and round . Spent hours and hours over phone with out any useful information available. If only I had another choice would not even ever recommend this service to anybody else even in a night mare. Wish could give negative stars if the feature is available. Single star is given so that i could post this review.