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Exciting New Changes

Exciting new

Changes

Achieve Montana has made some exciting improvements! We are reducing fees, updating the age-based options to expand the glidepath and focus on your beneficiary’s year of enrollment, adding two new individual portfolios and updating the underlying investments in which each portfolio invests.

These changes are automatic, so you don’t need to do anything. You’ll soon receive a Supplement to your existing Program Description that provides more detail, but here’s some highlights of what you can expect.

Reduced Fees

We’re helping you keep even more of what you save by reducing the expense ratios for all Portfolios. We are reducing asset based fees from a range of 0.47% – 0.83% to a range of 0.395% – 0.587%. That’s a decrease of as much as 29%!

Improved Investment Options

We’re redesigning our age-based options to include seven total steps and redesigned portfolios throughout the glide path. This change will allow a smoother transition from aggressive to more conservative investments as your beneficiary nears college age.

This tapered reduction, with its corresponding smaller portfolio reallocations, may help protect you from declines in the stock market while still allowing your account to benefit when the market goes up. In other words, the changes could provide account owners with the opportunity to increase their returns without significantly increasing their risk.

You can refer to the charts on this page for more details on the current and new glide paths for the new Year of Enrollment Option, as well as the portfolios that make up that option. Your assets will be moved to the new Year of Enrollment Portfolios based on the date of birth of the Beneficiary.

Beneficiary Date of Birth New Year of Enrollment Portfolios
September 11, 2021-September 10, 2024 2041 Enrollment Portfolio
September 11, 2018-September 10, 2021 2038 Enrollment Portfolio
September 11, 2015-September 10, 2018 2035 Enrollment Portfolio
September 11, 2012-September 10, 2015 2032 Enrollment Portfolio
September 11, 2012-September 10, 2012 2029 Enrollment Portfolio
September 11, 2012-September 10, 2009 2026 Enrollment Portfolio
September 11, 2012-September 10, 2006 2023 Enrollment Portfolio
September 10, 2003 and before College Portfolio

Changes to the Individual Portfolios

In order to continue to offer you best-in-class investment options, we’re updating the underlying investments in the Income Portfolio, Conservative Portfolio, Moderate Portfolio, Growth Portfolio, and Aggressive Portfolio. In addition, we’re changing how we refer to these portfolios. They will now be referred to as Asset Allocation Portfolios to more closely match the mix of investments in each portfolio.

The following table summarizes these changes. The funds listed on the left in the table below will be removed as underlying investments, the funds listed in the middle will be added as new underlying investments, and the funds listed on the right will remain as underlying investments.

ASSET ALLOCATION PORTFOLIOS
Removed underlying investments Added underlying investments Remaining underlying investments
DFA U.S. Large Company Portfolio

Vanguard Small-Cap Value Index Fund

Vanguard REIT Index Fund

DFA Short-Term Government Portfolio

DFA Inflation-Protected Securities Portfolio

Vanguard Total Bond Market Index Fund

Vanguard Prime Money Market Fund Institutional
iShares Total U.S. Stock Market Index Fund

Schwab U.S. REIT ETF

Vanguard Total Bond Market II Index Fund

iShares Core International Aggregate Bond ETF

Vanguard High-Yield Corporate Fund

New York Life Guaranteed Investment Account
Vanguard Developed Markets Index Fund

Vanguard Emerging Markets Stock Index Fund

Vanguard Short-Term Inflation-Protected Securities Index Fund

DFA Two-Year Global Fixed Income Portfolio

New Investment Options

We want to offer you more opportunities to customize your college savings. That’s why we’re introducing two new Individual Portfolios – the Equity Index Portfolio and the Bond Index Portfolio. Both are fixed investments – meaning that the underlying investments do not change over time the way a Year of Enrollment Portfolio’s assets gradually become more conservative as your beneficiary reaches school age.

The Equity Index Portfolio and the Bond Portfolio will offer the hands on investor more flexibility to choose the mix of investments that meets your higher education savings goals.

Individual Portfolios Underlying Fund Asset Class
Equity Index Portfolio iShares Total U.S. Stock Market Index Fund Domestic Equity
Bond Index Portfolio Vanguard Total Bond Market Index ETF Core Bond
Capital Preservation Portfolio New York Life Guaranteed Investment Account Capital Preservation

What to Expect After the Transition

As of the close of business on April 24, 2020, your account automatically transitioned to the new investment options.

We’re Here for You

As always, if you have any questions about these improvements or anything else about Achieve Montana, you can speak to one of our client service representatives at 877.486.9271 Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., Mountain time.