The topic of financial wellness is everywhere, and Excel 401(K): The Advisors’ Conference in Las Vegas was no exception.
Multiple sessions were dedicated to the topic—what it is, how it’s defined and importantly, how it’s successfully integrated into the advisor’s practice—over and above simply including in as a value-add to 401k plan sponsors.
Consider the following stats from PwC:
- 52 percent of workers overall are stressed about their finances
- 64 percent of millennials said they are stressed about their finances
- 46 percent of workers spend three or more hours during the workweek dealing with or thinking about financial issues
- 45 percent said their finance-related stress had increased over the last 12 months
Financial wellness is so important that Tuesday morning’s keynote featured top advisors and financial wellness experts answering those very questions.
“The United States is in the midst of a retirement savings crisis—64 percent of workers couldn’t even cover a $1,000 emergency,” said moderator Bill Chetney, founder of GRP Advisor Alliance. “Not only does this force employees to work well past normal retirement age, the related financial stress has a negative impact on productivity.”
In response, he added, financial wellness programs have exploded onto the retirement landscape with the goal of helping Americans get their financial house in order.
“As we’ve quickly found, there are several different ways to implement and deliver financial wellness solutions to your clients,” Chetney explained. “You can build partnerships with third-party wellness providers on your own, leverage partnerships that recordkeepers may have with wellness providers, or develop an in-house program.”
And even though financial wellness is still in its infancy, many plan sponsors are starting to grasp the long-term benefits of a workforce that is financially well: they are less stressed, more focused and productive, morale tends to be higher, and they can ultimately generate enough savings to retire on time.
“It really comes down to how the advisor successfully integrates financial wellness into the advisor’s practice,” he said. “What we’re finding is that it’s a big, new territory for advisors and clients are asking for it. We’re seeing it as an opportunity to help their clients and be a profit center, but it’s actually evolving into a new hire, because it’s a skillset that they don’t necessarily have. In many practices, it’s the No. 1 new hire that’s going on right now.”
With more than 20 years serving financial markets, John Sullivan is the former editor-in-chief of Investment Advisor magazine and retirement editor of ThinkAdvisor.com. Sullivan is also the former editor of Boomer Market Advisor and Bank Advisor magazines, and has a background in the insurance and investment industries in addition to his journalism roots.
