Riskalyze—the industry upstart that’s quickly evolving—announced Wednesday that it has released the latest version of its popular Autopilot platform, “Autopilot for Retirement Plans.”
The Auburn, California-based company that aligns clients and risk tolerance through the use of its Risk Number concept says Autopilot for Retirement Plans is “the first risk alignment platform that advisors can use to automate the matching of 401K, 457 and 403B participants with investment allocations.”
The service allows financial advisors to deliver “advice at scale” to the desktops and mobile devices of hundreds of plan participants with a few clicks.
“The genesis for ‘Autopilot for Retirement Plans’ came from 401(k) advisors,” Riskalyze CIO Mike McDaniel said in an exclusive interview with 401(k) Specialist Tuesday. “During the last eight to nine months, we overlaid a 401(k) platform on the Autopilot chassis. The existing Autopilot service is a one-off between advisors and clients. Autopilot for Retirement Plans allows advisors to service hundreds if not thousands of participants.”
The company’s Risk Number, which McDaniel said lies at the heart of the new release, quantifies risk suitability, rather than settling for a “subjective guess.”
“The risk number sets an expectation,” he added. “The participant knows what to expect over the next six months or over the long term.”
More specifically for advisors, the service allows them to add all participants to a single online dashboard, create model portfolios from the fund menu or 338 fiduciary, and invite participants using a special link to get matched with the fund elections that best align with their Risk Number and retirement goals.
When an advisor creates a new plan in the product, they can define the plan’s model portfolios, either building them from the fund menu or copying them from the plan’s 338 fiduciary. Each plan then has a landing page for participants to launch the “best interest” exercise and determine their Risk Number, or the advisor can send invites out via email.
“With $25 trillion in U.S. retirement assets, launching Autopilot for Retirement Plans is without a doubt the biggest thing Riskalyze has done since inventing the Risk Number,” McDaniel concluded. “Now advisors and plan sponsors can ensure that every single participant has access to getting invested correctly. This is a revolutionary moment for advisors, plan sponsors and plan participants alike.”
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.
