DALBAR Announces Its 2008 Service Award Winners in Financial Services

(Boston, MA. January 21, 2009) Today DALBAR released the 2008 winners of its annual Service Awards. For more than a decade, DALBAR has conducted rigorous testing of service delivery and, each year, identified those mutual fund, broker/dealer, annuity, life insurance and retirement plan providers that are able to deliver industry-leading service to their customers.

The winners of this year’s award have emerged from an increasingly competitive field and represent the service leaders within the financial services industry committed to delivering the highest tier of service to their customers.

A win in 2008 marks the seventeenth award for Putnam Investments and the thirteenth for The Hartford. Evergreen Investments and Seligman Funds are industry service leaders with 11 consecutive years of award winning experience.

BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, New York Life Bank and B/D Annuity Svc Center and Transamerica Funds have also been consistent in providing premier service by each earning the DALBAR Service Award for the ninth time.

Other firms that achieved excellence in service include: 1st Global, AEGON/Transamerica, AIG/SunAmerica, Allstate Insurance Company, Ameriprise Financial Services, Inc., AXA Equitable EQUI-VEST, Genworth Financial, The Guardian Insurance & Annuity Company, Inc., The Hartford-Individual Life, The Hartford Mutual Funds, John Hancock Annuities, John Hancock Signature Services, JPMorgan Funds, Lord, Abbett & Co., New York Life Insurance, New York Life Investment Management Service Company, Pacific Life Insurance, PLANCO, Primerica Shareholder Services, Prudential Financial, RiverSource, RS Investments, Sun Life Financial, and Transamerica Capital.

“The current market conditions have tested us all, and the service centers of the financial industry in particular. Achieving this award during this trying climate is a testament to the commitment and dedication of these companies to their customers and their unwavering efforts to do the right thing under the most challenging of circumstances”, said Csilla von Csiky, Managing Director at DALBAR.

The awards are based on systematic testing of customer service throughout the year. DALBAR conducts thousands of tests to measure how financial companies respond to the needs for service from their customers. Companies that exceed a variety of industry benchmarks after one year of testing earn the DALBAR Service Award. The following table provides a list of all firms that were recipients of DALBAR’s 2008 Service Award for each category.

DALBAR 2008 Service Award Winners

NOTE: The numbers in parentheses represent the number of times the organization has earned the Service Award.

In addition, DALBAR named the financial service institutions that are Key Honors winners in 2008. Companies that meet industry benchmarks after one year of testing earn DALBAR Key Honors. In 2008, MONY, an AXA Financial Company and Genworth Financial were the only firms to achieve this distinction.

DALBAR 2008 Key Honors Winners

The Mutual Fund, Annuity, Life Insurance and Retirement Plan categories represent service provided to consumers of these products. The Financial Intermediary categories represent service provided to professionals who advise investors.

About Dalbar, Inc.

Dalbar, Inc., the nation’s leading financial services market research and consulting firm, is committed to raising the standards of excellence in the financial services industry. With offices in both the US and Canada, Dalbar develops standards for, and provides research, ratings, and rankings of intangible factors to the mutual fund, broker/dealer, life insurance, property and casualty, and managed account industries. They include investor behavior, customer satisfaction, service quality, communications, Internet services, and financial professional ratings. www.dalbarinc.com