Morningstar, Inc. has signed an agreement with the Personal Investment Management and Financial Advice Association to become the exclusive index provider for PIMFA’s Private Investor Index Series and Equity Risk Index Series, effective March 2, 2026. The two families of indices—each comprising five composite benchmarks spanning equities, fixed income, real estate, cash and alternatives—will be rebranded as the Morningstar PIMFA Investor Index Series and the Morningstar PIMFA Equity Risk Index Series. With ten years of historical data available from launch, these benchmarks will continue to track Conservative, Income, Balanced, Growth and Global Growth risk profiles based on quarterly surveys of member firms’ model portfolios. The change follows a comprehensive review by the PIMFA Indices Committee and reflects PIMFA’s £1.65 trillion member sector and its desire for enhanced flexibility and future augmentations.

The Morningstar Center for Retirement & Policy Studies has introduced its 2026 Managed Accounts Research Series alongside the Defined Contribution Outcomes Model (DCOM), a simulation tool built on millions of participant records across thousands of workplace retirement plans. Key findings indicate that adoption of managed accounts can raise the median wealth-to-salary ratio at age 65 by 5.9% for target-date fund investors, 11.4% for self-directed investors and 7.7% on average. The youngest cohort (ages 20–24) saw improvements up to 22% for DIY investors, while lower-income workers (under $100,000 annual salary) also experienced the greatest relative gains. Even in plans with auto-enrollment and auto-escalation, 92% showed enhanced projected retirement wealth for target-date fund participants. Morningstar plans quarterly releases to explore plan features, default architectures and retirement-phase modeling, building on its existing research footprint and its $369 billion in AUMA as of September 30, 2025.