The WSR Wealth Exemplar Awards Retirement Income Solutions Provider of the Year goes to the top three firms that specialize in helping financial advisors align their clients with retirement income planning and retirement income generative vehicles. Firms must service a minimum of $250 million in client assets.
Sound Income Group
Ft. Lauderdale, Florida-based Sound Income Group (SIG) is a financial services holding company whose subsidiaries include the fee-based RIA Sound Income Strategies with $1.7 billion in assets under management, the insurance FMO Advisors’ Academy and The Retirement Income Store. The latter offers a nationwide franchise model to advisors who provide retirement planning services, including support such as marketing assistance, practice management programs and access to in-house coaches and subject matter experts.
SIG, which was founded 16 years ago, supports 100 advisors – 16 of whom the firm brought on this year while also experiencing a 13% year-on-year increase in gross revenue. It unveiled a new corporate structure in 2022 that brought together three complementary businesses to create a platform supporting resources and tools for independent financial professionals who wish to become retirement income specialists. In October, SIG moved into a new 15,000-square-foot headquarters that also houses three state-of-the-art broadcast studios.
IncomeConductor
Hartford, Connecticut-based IncomeConductor is a cloud-based tool that allows financial advisors, firms and individuals to create customized, time-segmented written income plans and distribution strategies that they can track and manage throughout retirement. It is the flagship platform of WealthConductor, founded in 2017.
This year the company partnered with institutional data provider HealthView Services to launch Health+, which helps advisors using IncomeConductor to integrate projected health care expenses into retirement plans. The service includes longevity estimates, Social Security benefits analysis and customized health cost projections. IncomeConductor also has integrations with a wide range of wealth management industry leaders, including Pershing, Black Diamond, Charles Schwab & Co. and Orion Advisor Technology.
Retirement Income Solutions
Ann Arbor, Michigan-based Retirement Income Solutions (RIS) is an advisory firm supporting 30 advisors and other financial professionals who collectively serve more than 1,200 clients, with approximately $2.4 billion in discretionary assets under management. The firm, which was founded in 1996, provides fee-only fiduciary advice for clients who reside in more than 30 states. RIS supports advisors across an array of services.
These include managing over $1 billion of TIAA money for hundreds of clients and their families across dozens of universities. RIS can actively manage those university retirement accounts without transferring assets. In addition, RIS has managed clients’ Fidelity accounts for nearly three decades including the assets of employees and retirees from several universities and non-profit entities. The firm’s advisors work with households on assets in their 403(b), 401(a), 457(b) and 401(k) accounts, as well as their traditional IRAs and Roth IRAs.