Adviser Product Partnerships – 9/27/23

Transamerica to Collaborate With Bestow to Enhance Financial Protection Offerings

Transamerica announced a partnership with Bestow, a technology company in the life insurance industry. Bestow will offer customers a digital platform with enhanced self-service options for Transamerica’s life insurance products.

“Partnering with Transamerica to reimagine the application, underwriting, and policy issuance of new products on our platform has been rewarding for both teams,” Melbourne O’Banion, CEO and co-founder of Bestow, said in a statement.

The Bestow platform simplifies the insurance application process for customers and agents and, in most cases, speeds up the process to go from application to decision in less than 10 minutes, according to the firm. The partnership will allow Transamerica to provide new products, including new final expense offerings.

“We are excited that Bestow will be building out a platform that redefines the Transamerica experience with our agents and clients,” Andrew DeMarco, head of life solutions at Transamerica, said in a statement. “Powered by Bestow technology, Transamerica will be able to enhance not only the way we engage with new clients—digitally and in minutes—but also how we provide service throughout the policy lifecycle.”

Envestnet to Partner With Iconik to Empower Investor Choice With Proxy Voting

Envestnet has partnered with voting technology provider Iconik to enhance proxy voting solutions for the firm’s sustainable quantitative portfolios, allowing individual investors to better implement their views in the voting process.

The Iconik partnership will help advisers increase retention and wallet share, encourage long-term stewardship of capital and further personalize the client experience. Advisers in the Envestnet ecosystem will have access to set-and-forget voting technology.

Reporting on key ballot items and the outcomes of those ballot items is accessible through a dashboard on which advisers can view relevant voting metrics and share those results with clients.

“Our partnership with iconik provides advisers who rely on the Envestnet ecosystem with a seamless mechanism that simplifies the process of exercising proxy votes on issues that matter most to their clients,” Brandon Thomas, Envestnet co-founder and co-CIO, said in a statement. “We continue to hear about the democratization of proxy voting as an important development in the industry.”

Lumiant Announces Partnership With Concourse Financial Group Securities

Lumiant Pty. Ltd., an advice and client engagement platform, announced a strategic partnership with Birmingham, Alabama-based Concourse Financial Group Securities Inc., an insurance and financial planning firm. Together, Lumiant and CFGS will support advice firms in growing their businesses.

“Lumiant’s financial technology platform is the new paradigm in client experience,” Libet Anderson, president of wealth management at Concourse, said in a statement. “By incorporating their life-based planning approach into our robust ecosystem, we can better support our financial professionals in aligning clients’ unique needs with the appropriate solutions, helping them along their paths of financial wellness and life success.”

In April, Lumiant acquired Genivity, a longevity and health planning solution that provided financial professionals with personalized advice based on the client’s lifestyle and longevity choices.

“We are excited to provide holistic planning solutions that address the whole person and their whole life, so CFGS financial professionals can help their clients live their best lives,” Blake Wood, Lumiant’s U.S. CEO, said in a statement.

SMArtX to Launch SMArtY Platform with Russell Investments’ Model Portfolios

SMArtX Advisory Solutions announced a strategic collaboration with Russell Investments, the first asset management firm to offer its investment strategies through the SMArtY platform.

SMArtY provides fee-sensitive advisers with a variety of features, including tax services, automated account rebalancing, seamless trade execution and access to third-party model investment strategies, all without the costs associated with conventional wealth management solutions.

SMArtY is a manager-sponsored, no-fee strategist platform powered by SMArtX’s managed accounts technology. The platform will launch to the public on September 28, and professionals can join a waitlist for exclusive early access.

“Uniting SMArtX’s state-of-the-art managed accounts technology with Russell Investments’ world-class asset management prowess, we are presenting traditional RIAs, wrap fee advisers, and financial planners with an unparalleled cost-free solution to address their investment management needs,” Jonathan Pincus, CEO of SMArtX, said in a statement.