Orion to Launch New Annuities Tools for Advisors

Annuities were once seen as a dirty word, besmirched for their high fees and murky features. Some people continue to disparage them online. (We’re looking at you, Ken Fisher.) But, that image may be softening.

Turnkey asset management platform Orion is embedding insurance tools into its flagship offering for financial advisors through an enhanced integration with annuities provider DPL Financial Partners. Orion, which has nearly $6 trillion in total client assets on its platform, is one of the leading technology providers to advisors who want to offload back-office tasks and efficiently build custom portfolios.

The collab, said Orion Advisor Technology President Reed Colley, gives advisors access to advanced annuity and insurance tools within the Orion platform, adding three of DPL’s annuity comparison and analysis tools. 

“Commission-free annuities are becoming an essential part of modern, fiduciary financial planning, but advisors need technology to access and implement them without friction,” Colley said, adding that the tools are “fully aligned with their fiduciary process.”

Cold on Commissions  

Run by the financial services veteran David Lau, DPL specializes in commission-free insurance and annuity products, as well as technology-driven product delivery and discovery tools for RIAs and other wealth management professionals. Historically,  annuities have lived outside the core advisor workflow, but putting these tools within Orion Connect lets advisors gain in-platform access to a marketplace of vetted products from the industry’s leading carriers, he said in a statement. Perhaps most of interest to growth-focused financial advisors: DPL’s technology lets annuities be treated as fee-billable assets, replacing the need to charge commissions that can be problematic in the fiduciary advice context. Annuities use among advisors is on the rise, and for good reason:

• Among advisors who use annuities, 44% in one DPL survey said embracing them has resulted in a meaningful boost to AUM. 
• Nearly the same percentage (43%) said just talking about annuities has strengthened client relationships.

“When you take out the commission incentive and you make it easier to evaluate tradeoffs with transparency, annuities can be treated like what they should be for many households,” Colley told Advisor Upside. “They are one more planning tool to solve specific retirement problems — income durability, volatility management and risk alignment — rather than a product category advisors feel they have to avoid.”

No License, No Problem . Notably, DPL supports advisors with insurance-licensed agents, so investment advisor representatives are not required to hold licenses or FINRA registration to incorporate annuities into their financial planning toolkit. “It also allows dually registered firms to evaluate their current annuity business for better client solutions and revenue streams,” Colley said.