Hoo’s, Defense, FIAs, the 500th RIJ, Dynamic, Risk, Legislation, Trade War, Regulation, RegBI Opine, the “F” Word, Vanguard, Leo-nard Bernstein! Our titular inspiration for this quarter’s News and Notes comes from R.E.M.’s 1987 rap “It’s the end of the world as we know it (and I feel fine).” The song climbed to #69 on Billboard’s...Continue Reading
Partnership grants firm’s wealth managers access to no-load fiduciary marketplace of next-gen risk-managed solutions San Francisco, Calif. – June 4, 2019 – Dynamic Wealth Advisors has partnered with RetireOne® to offer insurance and annuity back office services for the wealth management firms it supports. The new partnership provides distribution, education, servicing, and support for no-load...Continue Reading
RetireOne President Ed Mercier has been working in the RIA space for 20 years. In an article for Advisor Perspectives, Ed shares similarities between his experience serving this audience of fiduciaries, and that of his colleague, Jim Combs. Jim is CEO of National Advisors Trust (NATC). NATC is one of the largest trust companies in...Continue Reading
In this article for IRIS, RetireOne President Ed Mercier explores the trend toward zero commission or ‘no-load’ insurance products like annuities. As robos take on more and more advisor services, many experts agree that financial behavioral coaching is one area that resists automation. This new generation of low-cost, fiduciary-focused products help RIAs manage client behaviors...Continue Reading
Annuities have a terrible reputation. Rather than incorporating them into retirement plans to solve specific problems for investors, some salespeople overstated their features and benefits—selling them as ‘strategies’ rather than tactics. Writing in ThinkAdvisor, RetireOne CEO David Stone says this semantic difference is important. These are complex instruments that help investors achieve important goals, but...Continue Reading
Writing for Kiplinger.com, RetireOne® CEO David Stone addresses some old myth-making about variable annuities. As sure as the sun rises and sets, variable annuities will draw negative attention from some advisors and finance journalists. And typically, their criticisms are spot on. But those criticisms often pertain to older products sold for commission. VAs are evolving....Continue Reading
One of the enduring curiosities in wealth management is the slow adoption of no-load insurance products like annuities (see: Stone Writes in Advisor Perspectives about Slow RIA Adoption of No-Load Annuities). But things are changing. As more manufacturers, distributers, and technology platforms throw their hats in the ring, Retirement Income Journal Editor Kerry Pechter wonders...Continue Reading
Experts have been weighing in on the slow adoption of no-load annuities and insurance-based solutions by RIAs. Certainly, a lack of non-commission products has been one of the culprits, but as more and more fee-based products come to market, why is adoption still low? Michael Kitces, recently quoted in a Ben Mattlin article in Financial...Continue Reading
Writing in Advisor Perpectives, RetireOne CEO David Stone provides some insights into how to examine client variable annuities. Some advisors hate them for their complexity, high cost, and lack of transparency. And because RIAs aren’t typically insurance licensed, when clients walk in to their offices with VAs, some would rather refer them to an insurance...Continue Reading
The technology with the most radical impact on advisors’ businesses isn’t robo-advisors, according to Ric Edelman, founder and executive chairman of Edelman Financial Services in ThinkAdvisor. It’s the exponential technologies they may know little or nothing about. Exponential “sciences and technologies are going to alter virtually every aspect of life on the planet,” Edelman told...Continue Reading