The term “robo” has—of course—moved on from its singular association with advice and is now heading towards “robo financial plan.”
Albert Lea, Minnesota-based retirement plan provider intellicents said Thursday it’s rolling out its “life steps” robo financial plan as part of its worksite financial wellness initiative.
“We believe that financial wellness plans must go beyond education and coaching to truly ‘move the dial’ in the financial health of the American worker,” Brad Arends, Co-Founder and CEO of intellicents, said in a statement. “They need and want advice, but before our advisors and Certified Financial Planners can do that, we needed to figure out how to deliver a foundational financial plan to every employee.”
Holistic financial planning
He cites a 2018 survey by American Century Investments that finds 73% of employees age 25 to 54 find it somewhat or very attractive if their employer offered holistic financial planning and advice as an employee benefit, and 66% of workers age 55 to 65 find it somewhat or very attractive.
“With just an employee census containing age and wage, we can provide a foundational financial plan for an employer’s entire workforce,” added Matt Twedt, President of Personal Financial Management at intellicents. “From there, employees can further engage with our advisors and Certified Financial Planners provide additional details of their life dreams and financial information, and receive a holistic financial plan and ongoing advice on how to make it a reality. At intellicents we call it dream-based investing.”
Twedt went on to explain that life steps provide each employee rules-of-thumb on necessary emergency funds to protect against the unforeseen events, recommended life and disability insurance protection amounts, debt load/credit management, and retirement readiness.
And the more information the employer can provide about the employee’s family situation and current employee benefits, the more detailed the annual report can be.
“This is the key to employee engagement in your worksite financial wellness program,” Arends concluded.
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.
