The leadership team at Lion Street is comprised of insurance industry veterans who understand the challenges life insurance practitioners face. One way they advocate for their advisors and the betterment of the life insurance industry is by working with their carrier partners to provide better data access to advisors. A key challenge facing independent advisors is efficient and comprehensive client service after the initial sale. Each carrier has their own unique methods and formats by which they share inforce policy data with distributors, advisors, and policyowners. These inconsistencies make it difficult for advisors and distributors to efficiently manage inforce books of business.
“Lion Street recognizes there is an opportunity to improve the efficiency and ability for carriers to better support independent advisors with new technologies such as Proformex. As a Distributor, our charge is to advocate for our advisors and work with carriers to deliver solutions for independent practitioners operating in a multi-carrier environment. Insurance carriers play a critical role. Carriers need to provide better, more timely access to inforce policy data to enable advisors to effectively support their clients. Carriers that provide advisors rich, timely inforce policy data are demonstrating they understand this is important to establishing and maintaining long-term relationships with advisors. There is so much emphasis on new business, that some carriers overlook the importance of the advisor’s role in policyholder service. However, for carriers that do recognize and support this, they enjoy improved persistency ratios, reduced demand on their overhead-intensive policyholder service resources, and also create a new competitive advantage. As insurance products become more commoditized and new business underwriting more systematic, providing inforce policy data to advisors and distributors represents a real opportunity for carriers.”
– Scott Weber VP of Practice Management and Technology, Lion Street
Not long after they set out on their mission, Lion Street was introduced to Proformex and it quickly became abundantly clear that both groups were ultimately working towards the same goal – better access to inforce data and more transparency and visibility across the industry. Lion Street in turn introduced Proformex to their independent firms and encouraged those firms to implement Proformex as their inforce management solution.
Proformex helps the life insurance community connect visibility to opportunity. This case study will explore two unique scenarios by sophisticated life insurance advisors who are affiliated with Lion Street. Each demonstrates some of the ways in which Proformex has helped drive their growth and success.
Leveraging Proformex for Succession Planning with Scott Cahill, Senior Vice President of Fulcrum Partners
Fulcrum Partners is an executive benefits advisory that provides an array of services to its clients from life insurance coverage to wealth transfers, buy-sell agreements, and more. Their inforce book of business dates back a few decades and spans a variety of policy and product types. In order to continue providing the individualized service their clients had grown accustomed to in an ever-evolving digital landscape, the team committed themselves to expanding their breadth of digital resources to enhance their existing level of excellence in client service.
One of the big steps the team at Fulcrum Partners took was implementing Proformex as their inforce management tool. Proformex serves as a single system of record for their entire book of business. For Scott Cahill, Senior Vice President of Fulcrum Partners, Proformex has been instrumental in institutionalizing their block of business, making future succession planning much more effective and efficient.
“Having a central location for all our policy information within Proformex provides us with a high level of comfort and an additional layer of proactive monitoring to ensure policies continue to perform relative to our clients’ expectations. When the time comes for me to transition out of the business, I know it will be smooth and seamless for our clients thanks to Proformex,” Cahill said.
Clients of Fulcrum Partners who rely on them for their holistic service and dedication now can count on future generations of the business in the same way. Proformex bridges that gap and looks forward to helping Fulcrum Partners to retain clients and generate new business for years to come.
Utilizing Proformex to Uncover Opportunities and Boost Productivity with Tom Wiseman, President of Wiseman and Associates Wealth Management
Wiseman & Associates Wealth Management is a comprehensive financial advisory firm dedicated to serving all of their clients’ financial needs. Tom Wiseman, the firm’s President, has been providing life insurance solutions for his clients for more than 30 years. The policies in his inforce book run the gamut in terms of which types of products were sold and through which carriers they have been written.
Wiseman’s team of three full-time employees work together to service all their clients’ financial needs and ensure those clients’ best interests remain intact throughout the duration of the relationship. With portfolios comprised of varying complexity, it was proving difficult to monitor and manage their inforce block of business through manual efforts alone. Even with the help of a CRM database like Salesforce, it was still far too cumbersome and time-consuming to track down information and be proactive with their inforce management strategy.
These pain points around inefficient processes and scattered client data drove them to find a better solution. It was then that the Wiseman team found Proformex and ultimately chose to use it as their inforce management tool. With Proformex, Wiseman & Associates has been able to consolidate all their client data across multiple carriers and product lines into a secure, centralized location. Storing all that data in one place has significantly increased their overall efficiency and thoroughness; instead of reacting to issues once they’ve been notified by the carrier, the team at Wiseman can take a more proactive approach with the alerts and analytics about their book of business provided by Proformex.
Whether the performance of a policy indicates potential risk, or there might be an opportunity for a client to get into a new policy that better matches their financial goals and objectives, Proformex surfaces the policies that need your attention most so you can take action before disaster strikes. And the ability to identify replacement or modification opportunities has been instrumental in Wiseman’s success with the Proformex platform.
Tom Wiseman states: “My back-office administrator uses Proformex to package up opportunities and brings them to my attention right away. Within the past 4 months, we’ve uncovered at least one opportunity every week that ultimately led to a transaction that better suited the client’s needs and increased our revenue. We are extremely happy with Proformex as our inforce tool.”
Additionally, Wiseman indicated that if it were not for Proformex, he would need to hire 2-3 more full-time employees to help with the administrative work required for the size of their inforce book of business. Ultimately, Proformex provides the most value to Wiseman & Associates in three ways: opportunity identification, streamlined post-sale servicing processes that provide more efficiency, and money saved on hiring or outsourcing admin work to stay on top of their policies’ performance.
Conclusion
Though no two firms may be identical in how they operate, what Lion Street and Proformex have found is simply that when advisors across the life insurance community have access to accurate, up-to-date inforce data, clients’ best interests will remain intact. Proformex serves as that connection point for the entire life insurance community – from carriers to distributors, financial institutions, advisors, and even policyowners. It is the industry-leading solution when it comes to inforce policy management, and it’s the best way for the industry to achieve growth and, most importantly, ensure the best possible outcomes for the millions of people who rely on their life insurance coverage.
About Fulcrum Partners
With a team of experienced industry professionals who serve with diverse skill sets, targeted experience and in-depth expertise in executive compensation and benefits consulting, the financial professionals at Fulcrum Partners focus on an integrated approach to the design, financing and plan administration of executive benefits programs. Fulcrum Partners LLC was established as a wholly independent, member-owned firm dedicated to helping organizations enhance their Total Rewards Strategy. Founded in 2007, today the company has offices in Atlanta, Georgia; Chicago, Illinois; Charleston, South Carolina; Columbus and Cleveland, Ohio; Delray Beach, Orlando and Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida; Honolulu, Hawaii; Los Angeles and Newport Beach, California; Portland, Oregon; Salt Lake City, Utah and Washington D.C.
About Wiseman & Associates Wealth Management
Wiseman & Associates takes a comprehensive approach to your finances. They believe in sound investment strategies, well thought out insurance coverage that meets your current needs while protecting the future, and a comprehensive plan for the future of your family and business. They have over 25 years of experience in Northern Virginia managing and helping their clients grow their wealth. They carefully evaluate every aspect of your financial picture and unique needs to develop a comprehensive plan designed to manage your assets, grow your net worth and leave a legacy. Theirs is a measured approach that relies on in-depth understanding of Wealth Management, Estate and Business Succession and Insurance Strategies. Their successes can be directly attributed to helping our clients in Hunt Country and the Greater D.C. Area skillfully manage their assets and pursue their personal goals. They believe that true financial success is not about how much money you have, but how much money you keep.
About Lion Street
Lion Street is a leading, national financial services company based in Austin, Texas. Lion Street provides elite life insurance advisors access to the financial products, intellectual capital, and specialized resources they need to meet the sophisticated needs of high-net-worth and corporate clients. Together, Lion Street’s Advisor-Owners are strongly committed to building a highly collaborative network of professionals.
About Proformex
Proformex is a data and technology platform purpose-built for financial professionals and institutions to manage life insurance and annuity assets. With deep data and technology expertise, Proformex connects customers to critical information about their life insurance and annuity businesses and helps them make better informed, data-driven decisions. With Proformex, financial professionals have the technology tools needed to proactively manage life insurance and annuities and enhance value for their clients.