A subsidiary of Guardian Life Insurance Co. of America is offering an enhancement to its retirement products it says can reduce investment expenses for managed account services.

Guardian Insurance & Annuity Co. announced that Stadion Money Management enhanced its managed account services offered to plan participants of Guardian Choice and Guardian Advantage group retirement products.

The investment lineup for the managed account service was expanded to include collective investment funds (CIFs), advised by Stadion. The underlying investment vehicles in these funds will be exchange-traded funds, cash and cash equivalents, according to the company.

These CIFs will be used exclusively by Stadion in its management of plan participant accounts and are not available for direct investment by plan sponsors or plan participants.

“The new CIFs will benefit plan participants by improving trading efficiencies that allow Stadion, as investment advisor, to respond more quickly to changing market conditions and by reducing investment expenses through the use of these lower cost investment options,” said Scott Dolfi, Guardian’s executive vice president of retirement solutions, in a statement.