Wealth Clients Can Benchmark Their Well-being vs Their Peers

Data is just starting to be viewed as a driver of innovation in wealth and life insurance companies #

Venerable institutions that have been around for decades—and even the newer organizations—are sitting on millions, if not billions of client records.

These vast volumes of data are a trove of potential investor and business insights. A resource that can be leveraged to improve decision-making, target marketing campaigns, and point to new avenues for product development.

Only in recent years are companies beginning to understand that the virtual mountains of digital records in their repositories represent a critical strategic asset. The challenge is accessing and harnessing that data.

One significant way companies can leverage their data is to educate and motivate consumers. Recently, Equisoft developed a benchmarking tool that does just that.

What is the benchmarking tool? #

The benchmarking tool is the latest innovation to come from Equisoft’s R & D team. It is a simple way of giving consumers another perspective regarding their financial health—both in terms of investments and insurance needs.

What is unique is that the tool makes use of, not only the consumer’s answers to a few simple questions, but volumes of data accumulated in the Equisoft data lake (which includes proprietary data as well as third party data sources processed in aggregated and anonymous form).

This information is used to determine the investment and insurance health of the consumer’s peer group. It then performs analytics to rate the consumer against those benchmarks.

And, the findings can be revealing. For instance, a consumer’s RRSP investments may be above average compared to their cohort, but they could discover that they have less life insurance coverage. That’s a gap which can then be considered and, if need be, addressed.

While traditional tools may show that a consumer is mathematically on the right track, that person may still lag behind their peers in some areas. The benchmarking tool differs by offering an alternative method.

It highlights potential gaps and frames them in as an objective comparison of how they rate against their peer group. Seeing this kind of result gives advisors the chance to ask, “Does that issue need to be addressed?”

How advisors and their firms can leverage the benchmarking tool #

At the distributor level, a dealer might put the tool on their website and encourage investors to use it, benefiting both consumers and their advisors.

The consumer can perform a self-assessment and receive recommended follow-up actions to improve their financial health relative to their peer group. They can also then be directed to an appropriate advisor—creating a high-quality lead.

Furthermore, many advisors struggle to cross-sell and upsell. The benchmarking tool speeds up the discovery process and enables advisors to uncover more client needs.

Advisors can share the benchmarking tool with their clients and prospects, giving each of them another window into their financial health. Once they have completed the simple benchmarking process, the advisor can set up a meeting to review the results and offer solutions.

Using the tool also increases the likelihood that a consumer will accept an advisor’s recommendations. It educates the client about their financial health and provides another lens through which to view their progress towards their goals.

What does the future hold? #

The benchmarking tool is just one example of what can be done to leverage the vast volumes of data that all wealth and insurance companies have in their repositories.

The new platform Equisoft has developed is flexible enough to be configured to access and analyze data for a variety of future uses depending on the needs of carriers, manufacturers and distributors—and the data that is fed into it.

Enhanced manufacturer, carrier and distributor marketing #

Without access to intelligence born from their accumulated data it is difficult for organizations to target their marketing to the right people with the right needs. With the right platform, data could be used by organizations to develop new, highly targeted marketing campaigns.

For example, a company with years of data from their asset allocation solution, combined with their CRM data could use the tool and the data set to identify opportunities to tailor campaigns to the products, regions, advisors and investors who would benefit most.

Companies that understand the strategic value of the data they’ve been collecting and are able to leverage it, will have a window into their client’s lives, goals and financial health--gaining a significant advantage over their competition. That’s why Equisoft will continue to innovate and pursue aggressive R&D projects like this one for all industry stakeholders.