Nearly half (48%) of employers that do not currently sponsor a standalone retirement plan say they would consider joining a pooled employer plan (PEP), multiple employer plan (MEP), or defined contribution group, according to 2026 research from the Transamerica Institute, a nonprofit affiliated with Transamerica.
The figure comes from the Institute's May 2026 Employers, Workers, and the New World of Work report, published alongside Transamerica's 25th anniversary in the pooled plan market. The context behind it is stark: four in ten private-sector employees at businesses with fewer than 100 workers have no access to a workplace retirement plan, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics' September 2025 Employee Benefits Survey. That makes employer receptiveness to pooled structures a live question rather than a theoretical one.
Major US insurance brokerages have begun extending into retirement and wealth advisory for small and midsize employer clients, adding retirement plan consulting to existing health, disability, and life relationships. The Transamerica Institute data suggests a meaningful share of those clients are open to the conversation, provided the administrative and fiduciary burden of running a plan does not fall on them.
That is precisely what pooled structures are designed to address. Under a PEP, a pooled plan provider assumes most administrative and fiduciary responsibilities, including investment oversight, compliance testing, and Form 5500 filing, while the adopting employer retains only the duty to select and monitor the provider. The appeal is direct for employers without an HR team to manage a standalone plan.
The market has responded accordingly. PEP assets totaled $34 billion at year-end 2025, with 10,797 adopting employers across 330 plans, a 44.8% increase in adopting employers in a single year, according to the 2026 PLANSPONSOR Recordkeeping Survey. Those figures represent substantial growth from approximately $2 billion when the PEP structure launched in 2021 under the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement (SECURE) Act.
That growth trajectory has limits worth acknowledging. A June 2026 analysis by Georgetown University's Center for Retirement Initiatives, produced with Gallagher Fiduciary Advisors, found that the majority of PEP assets reflect migrations from existing single-employer plans rather than coverage extended to previously unserved employers. The PEP participation rate recorded in Department of Labor data stood at 36.2%, against a Vanguard plan-weighted average of 82% for traditional plans.
Kelsey Mayo, chief of retirement policy and regulatory affairs at the American Retirement Association, noted at a Georgetown webinar in August 2026 that small employer PEP adoption had not been as robust as originally intended. Further policy reforms and industry coordination, she said, would be needed to reach the employers the SECURE Act was designed to serve.
That conversion is becoming less optional in a growing number of states. As of 2026, 17 or more states have enacted legislation requiring employers above a minimum size to either sponsor a qualified retirement plan or automatically enroll workers in a state-run auto-IRA program. PEPs offer employer matching, plan design flexibility, and higher contribution limits that state IRA programs do not, making them a concrete private-market alternative for employers facing a compliance deadline.
Transamerica's Stanley Kim, director and pooled plan practice leader, said the company is working alongside advisors and third-party administrators to strengthen support for employers and expand access to retirement savings for more workers as demand for the structures continues to grow.
