Duluth, MN Office

Transamerica Retirement Advisors (TRA) serves participants in employer‑sponsored retirement plans and IRA owners through programs called Managed Advice, Advisor Managed Advice (AMA), and Today’s Advice, and it also provides investment education services via Retirement Plan Consultants and phone‑based Transamerica Advice Center (TAC) advisors. These services focus on asset allocation, contribution rate and retirement age guidance, and offer both implemented managed portfolios and non‑discretionary, view‑only recommendations depending on the program.

TRA’s advice and portfolio construction rely heavily on Morningstar Investment Management as the Independent Financial Expert, which supplies the proprietary software, model asset allocations, and ongoing portfolio oversight used in Managed Advice and Today’s Advice; AMA similarly incorporates third‑party advisers for model construction in some plans. Morningstar’s engine personalizes allocations by blending accumulation and decumulation portfolios and incorporates concepts such as “human capital” and retirement spend‑down modeling, while Today’s Advice remains point‑in‑time and non‑discretionary.

The firm operates at scale with roughly 212,700 clients and 301 advisors, resulting in a high client‑to‑advisor ratio and a notably large share of non‑discretionary assets (approximately $10.829 billion non‑discretionary vs. $7.999 billion discretionary), and the brochure discloses that TRA does not target high‑net‑worth or corporate clients nor offer standalone financial planning in these programs. TRA is part of a broader Transamerica/AEGON group and uses affiliated recordkeeping, brokerage, and insurance channels (with compensation and referral arrangements for TAC advisors, RPCs, and other wholesalers), and the firm disclosed an SEC order in 2025 related to prior disclosure shortcomings and a related $2.9 million penalty.