William Peragine, HUB International Retirement & Private Wealth

Business at a Glance as of 12/31/22

• Plan assets under advisement: $1.8 billion
• Median plan size (in assets): $38 million
• Plans under administration: 48
• Total participants served: 26,000

PLANADVISER: Tell us about your practice and how you got into advising retirement plans.

Peragine: Our team has been designing, implementing and managing retirement plans since 1993. I got involved in advising on retirement plans because, as a traditional wealth management adviser, I would have clients come to me and ask me how their company retirement plan worked or how to invest in their company plan. In doing so, I observed so many deficiencies in these plans that I decided to pursue that side of the business where I could advise companies on how to better their plan for their employees.

PLANADVISER: How is your team/process/structure unique? How has it evolved? Where will you be in five years?

Peragine: Our team is unique in that the core people on the team have been together for more than 25 years, thus providing our clients with a sense of consistency and security. With that much experience, we offer a tremendous amount of industry insight, which betters our clients’ plans and ultimately makes for better participant outcomes. We have evolved as industry experts because for more than 25 years, we have gained knowledge and expertise that only comes with experience. You cannot teach or learn experience, and in five years, our team will still be together with even more experience. We will be of retirement age and able to share with our clients what it was like to go from just starting in a retirement plan to retirement.

PLANADVISER: As a retirement plan adviser, what do you take the most pride in?

Peragine: As a retirement adviser, I take the most pride in empowering employees to embrace their company’s retirement plan and also providing a meaningful impact on the financial outcomes of each and every participant. I also take a tremendous amount of pride in designing a retirement plan/benefit that fits the needs of a company’s specific culture while driving as much cost as possible out of the plan. And finally, I am so proud that I am able to use my experience and relationships in the industry to be an advocate for the plan sponsors and make each one of our plans the best it can be.

PLANADVISER: How do you grow your business? What changes to your practice or service model are you planning for 2023 or 2024?

Peragine: We grow our business in three ways. First, we have long and strong relationships with our clients, which has helped grow our business through client referrals, as well as when one of our clients’ key decisionmakers decides to work for another employer,–they inevitably contact us to manage the retirement plan at their new employer. Second, because of our more than 25 years of experience and solid reputation in the industry, we have gotten referrals from the various vendors, relationships in the industry and fund families. Third, since we have joined HUB International, we have received referrals from the benefit brokers at our firm.

PLANADVISER: What challenges do you think the retirement plan industry faces and what role do you have in addressing and confronting those challenges?

Peragine: I believe the retirement industry continues to face the challenge of engaging and empowering participants to embrace the awesome task of saving for a comfortable retirement. There are some things that I have done and continue to do to assist in that mission. First: design a plan that fits every company and its demographics. Second: make sure I continue to be diligent in driving as much cost out of the plan so the participants have a larger balance at retirement. Third: make sure that there is a fund due diligence process in place to ensure the participants always have best-in-class funds available to them. Fourth: implement a consistent communications strategy to educate the employees that are in the plan and engage the employees that are not in the plan to start to save for retirement. Finally: monitor the results of all these items so we can strategize with the plan sponsor to do a better job every year.

PLANADVISER: Please tell us about an important experience you have had while getting involved in your local, regional or global community

Peragine: During my time servicing New York Cancer and Blood’s retirement plan, I learned about how special a place it truly was by offering unparalleled care for its patients. But when I went a step further, I learned about the New York Cancer Foundation and its commitment to helping patients diagnosed with cancer. Because of the doctors’ concern for their patients’ overall well-being, the New York Cancer Foundation was born with the doctors contributing a portion of their pay to start the foundation. The foundation provides financial assistance to those undergoing the stresses of being diagnosed with cancer and by being a place and resource that helps those who cannot help themselves. I initially volunteered to work on several fundraising events and have been, for more than four years, one of the only board members not employed by New York Cancer and Blood. This foundation is especially close to my heart because my dad was diagnosed with three different types of cancer in his lifetime, and although my dad had the resources and family support in place, it was obvious to me that he constantly worried about how his diagnosis impacted his family and whether they would be able to endure the financial stress of his diagnosis. This is why I could not help but get involved, volunteer my time and give back.

The New York Cancer Foundation’s mission statement is to help relieve the financial stresses experienced by patients who are under care for cancer. The foundation helps people with things like paying rent, paying for food, transportation or any basic need they cannot afford during their cancer treatment. The foundation has experienced tremendous growth in 2022, and our events have raised quite a bit money—more than we have raised in prior years! Through individual contributions and our events in 2022, we raised $1,929,000. This helped us help more families as well: We went from 142 grant recipients in 2021 to 427 in 2022! We have awarded $865 million in grants to cancer patients from Brooklyn all the way to Southampton and also helped grant recipients get to and from their cancer treatments with more than 2,200 UberHealth rides. https://www.nycancerfoundation.org/

PLANADVISER: What advice can you give to your industry peers about developing a successful philanthropic or charitable vision for a firm?

Peragine: My advice is to be grateful and understand how fortunate we are as financial advisers to have the resources that so many do not have to live a comfortable life. We spend a tremendous amount of time assisting people with retirement readiness, closing the income gap and having a positive retirement outcome. But we rarely think that there are many people undergoing financial stresses that prevent them from even thinking about retirement. I challenge everyone to look to your community or to a charity that is meaningful to you and participate. There are so many good causes that need people and their time. As a team, we encourage all of our team members to participate in the community, in a charity or for any cause that can help others.