Retirement plan sponsors face a slew of challenges in 2013 as they try to stay competitive while dealing with the requirements of new fee disclosure rules, according Mesirow Financial's 2013 Retirement Plan Survey released Tuesday.

Sponsors also face growing liability, with the number of claims against fiduciaries having tripled since the 1990s.

Key findings in the 2013 report:

• 82.1 percent of plan sponsors surveyed said participants did not fully avail themselves of savings and retirement tools, about the same as last year
• 54.5 percent said they offered automatic enrollment features, compared with 49.4 percent in 2012
• 44 percent of respondents offered step-up deferral rate solutions, up from 32.9 percent last year
• 85.3 percent said they used target-date funds, a jump up from 72.4 percent last year.

The survey found that fee disclosure would be a front-burner issue for plan sponsors this year. About 88 percent of respondents said they were reviewing implicit and explicit plan fees in the past six months.