PLANADVISER - July/August 2018 - 10

practice development
Advisers
Called To
Help 'Heal'
Finances
" W
hen I ask a roomful of plan
sponsors, " Who's interested
in financial wellness?,' 100%
of the hands go up, " says Michael Kane,
managing director of Plan Sponsor
Consultants in Atlanta.
According to just one statistic, 87%
of 950 adults surveyed recently by
Harris Poll said their finances cause
them some stress or more. This financial
stress is negatively affecting sponsors
through employees' increased
absenteeism, lost productivity and
inability to retire at the time they want,
Kane says.
Retirement
plan
advisers,
thus,
have an ever-widening opportunity to
address their clients' financial wellness
needs. Yet, when the services-which
can involve research, tools, technology,
programs and follow-up-could potentially
strain your firm's resources, how
much time and money is it worthwhile
to invest?
To complicate an assessment, trying
to monetize the work can be hard, says
Patrick Delaney, vice president, retirement
insights leader, with T. Rowe
Price Investment Services in Baltimore.
" There's not a ton of money in it, and it's
tough for advisers to get paid for it. " But
offering it can make a crucial difference
when prospecting new clients, he
says, citing advisers who have won-or
lost-in their final presentations based
on whether or not it was something
they brought to the table.
Advisers do have substantial choice
in the level of service they offer. They
may lack the bandwidth to invest time
in, say, providing extra participant
educational meetings, or sustaining
the momentum of a client's wellness
program-necessary when the goal
" Financial wellness is really, really
broad, and it will be impossible
to effectively boil the ocean. "
is behavioral change. Instead, " they
may introduce a valuable solution to
a client, not deliver the service themselves, "
says Rachel Weker, vice president
and senior manager, investment
platforms and services, at T. Rowe
Price Retirement Plan Services in
Owings Mills, Maryland.
Kane outsources a variety of
services. The best vendors, he stresses,
start with analytics, measuring the
client company's financial needs,
shaping education accordingly and
tracking employee actions taken. To
nurture change, they supply coaching,
artificial intelligence (AI) prompts and,
likely, a support line.
The adviser is paid for being integral
to the process, he says. " You're bringing
the best practices and doing the implementation
and making sure this thing
works as advertised. " The adviser may
also supply coaching, he says.
Some advisers charge à la carte for
each service they provide such as to
add a discussion of budgeting or debt
reduction to group meetings or one-onones,
says Delaney. Others may create
their own proprietary program, he
says. To implement that with a client,
they may charge above and beyond
their fee to service the plan.
Some
sponsors,
though,
expect
such services to be free, Weker says,
so it is important to confirm what they
are willing to pay.
Whatever level of service the
adviser offers, he should start with
identifying the client's wellness goals
upfront, she says. " Ask, 'What do you
want to accomplish? Why ...? What are
the employees' financial challenges?'
Zero in, " she says. " Financial wellness
is really, really broad, and it will
be impossible to effectively boil the
ocean. " -Karen Wittwer
10 | planadviser.com july-august 2018
Art by David Huang
http://www.planadviserdigital.com/planadviser/july_august_2018/TrackLink.action?pageName=10&exitLink=http%3A%2F%2Fplanadviser.com
PLANADVISER - July/August 2018

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of PLANADVISER - July/August 2018
