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In Practice July 29, 2025
I Used to Be Skeptical About Financial Wellness. Here’s What Changed My Mind.
Financial Finesse President Todd Lacey makes a case for integrating financial wellness into an advisory practice.
Reported by Todd Lacey
Todd Lacey
Five years ago, if you’d told me I’d be running a financial wellness firm, I probably would’ve laughed.
It’s not that I didn’t think these programs could do some good. I’d seen enough data. But after more than 25 years working in retirement—running an advisory firm, working with recordkeepers, partnering with advisers—I hadn’t seen financial wellness move the needle in a way that truly grew a business. It didn’t scale or tie back to return on investment. At best, it felt like a bolt-on. At worst, a well-intentioned distraction.
The Roots of the Skepticism
I know I wasn’t alone. A lot of people in this industry still feel that way. Financial wellness has long been viewed as a “nice-to-have”—something you add to your offering to check a box, satisfy a client or feel good about doing something helpful for employees. But rarely has it been seen as a driver of growth or competitive advantage. The perception: It’s expensive, difficult to maintain and unlikely to deliver real value.
To be fair, that perception wasn’t entirely wrong. Many early programs were hard to justify: They lacked clear outcomes, they required dedicated teams just to get engagement and they rarely fit into the broader goals of advisers or plan sponsors. Even now, many programs ask too much of the adviser, expecting them to drive usage and results without the tools, time or support to do it well. The result? Low engagement, little impact and another round of skepticism.
The Fortune 500 Illusion
For a while, the only real success stories seemed to come from Fortune 500s—companies with deep pockets and large benefits teams. They could afford custom platforms, full-time support staff and long timelines to build internal alignment. Naturally, the assumption became: Financial wellness only works if you have the scale and budget to do it.
But that wasn’t the whole story. What actually made those programs work wasn’t their size—it was their structure. They had the right tools, the right strategy and the right integration. The real issue was that financial wellness hadn’t been built to work for advisers.
When it is—when it’s designed with the adviser in mind and backed by the right infrastructure—it stops being fluff. It becomes a serious growth engine.
What Makes It Work
What I’ve learned is that for financial wellness to be effective, it has to create value for everyone involved. That means every stakeholder needs to see real, measurable impact. Advisers need to drive new business, improve retention and deepen client relationships.
Employers need to see a reduction in stress-related health claims, higher satisfaction with pay and benefits, and real progress toward being a partner in employees’ financial security.
Recordkeepers and asset managers need to see that financial wellness drives growth—by helping win new plans, retain at-risk ones and compete on value, instead of just fees.
While plan sponsors have offered financial wellness for years, it’s those who serve them—advisers, recordkeepers and asset managers—who are now recognizing the strategic power of world-class financial coaching platforms. These platforms close the action gap by surfacing the right solutions at the right time and helping employees engage with benefits they may not even realize they have, including emerging wealth services offered at work.
When employees improve their financial wellness, they contribute more. At Financial Finesse, we’ve seen higher financial wellness scores lead to a steady climb in deferral rates: Those scoring a 4.0 on a 10-point scale average 6.57% contributions, while those scoring 6.0 average 8.37%. That kind of lift doesn’t just benefit the employee—it grows AUM and, with it, adviser revenue.
One of our asset manager clients saw something even more striking: After rolling out a financial wellness program across multiple plan sponsor clients, it retained 100% of existing assets and brought in $1.6 billion in new ones.
It doesn’t stop there. Participants who build confidence through wellness programs are more open to product conversations—life insurance, retirement income strategies, managed accounts, estate planning. They’re less likely to panic and take early withdrawals, more likely to stay on track and more willing to engage with their plan’s adviser.
These are the kinds of outcomes that directly influence plan health, deepen relationships and open doors for adding more value to participants. We’re not just talking about education anymore—we’re talking about real behavioral change that moves business outcomes.
What Changed My Mind
For me, the turning point wasn’t a single number. It was the consistency of the outcomes. Time and again, we saw that when wellness is delivered with the right combination of human guidance and smart technology, people engage—and they follow through.
In our digital Financial Wellness Portal, for example, 81% of users who received a recommendation from our AI coach, Aimee, to increase their deferral rate actually did. That’s a behavior shift that directly impacts both the individual’s retirement outlook and the adviser’s long-term value.
We’ve seen similar results across the board:
- 63% of users who started with no emergency savings now have at least $1,000;
- Among users who were not initially on track for retirement, 25% were able to get on track in less than one year, 55% in about two years, and 70% after being in the program for three years; and
- Investment confidence rose 26 points on our scale.
These are the kinds of changes that advisers and sponsors can point to—and build a business case around.
The Winning Formula: AI + Coach + Adviser
What makes it all work is the integration. Artificial intelligence alone isn’t enough. Coaching alone isn’t enough. And advisers can’t do it alone, either. The most successful model we’ve seen combines AI-driven insights, human coaching and adviser enablement—supported by recordkeepers and asset managers who make the system seamless.
For example, Aimee, our AI financial coach, works hand-in-hand with our team of human Certified Financial Planner professionals who’ve relinquished their licenses to sell products—their only goal is coaching employees toward better outcomes. When Aimee suggests capturing the full employer match, she links employees directly to the plan through our Financial Wellness Hub. For complex decisions like retirement income planning, she connects them to the plan’s adviser. This isn’t a sales funnel masked as a handoff. Because employees first engage with unbiased coaching within their trusted employer benefits, they’re more prepared and open when the adviser steps in. In turn, advisers receive better-qualified, genuinely interested leads—making every conversation more productive. Everyone wins, and no one feels sold to.
Wellness programs that operate in silos fall short. But when every part of the system works together, the outcomes speak for themselves.
Where Advisers Win
Financial wellness, when done right, becomes a catalyst—not just for better outcomes, but for stronger adviser businesses.
We’ve seen it fuel health savings account adoption. In one study, employees who engaged with our financial coaching platform increased their HSA contributions by 41%. The Employee Benefit Research Institute has found that financial confidence translates into action—exactly what advisers need to grow their relationships and expand their offerings.
Take Sean Bjork of Bjork Asset Management. He didn’t bolt wellness onto the side of his practice—he made it core. He used it to surface deeper financial needs, deliver targeted support and reframe his value to clients. This helped drive new revenue opportunities, stronger retention and his path to being named the 2025 PLANADVISER Retirement Plan Adviser of the Year for Plan Participant Service.
A Real Shift in Perspective
What financial wellness has taught me—something we don’t say enough—is that most people aren’t ready to talk about retirement when they’re overwhelmed by today. If they’re living paycheck to paycheck or stuck in a cycle of debt, telling them to increase their 401(k) deferral feels tone-deaf.
But if you help them stabilize their financial lives—build a budget, create an emergency fund, reduce stress—then you earn the right to talk about long-term goals. That’s where real engagement begins, and that’s where retirement readiness truly takes root.
Where do you begin? Here’s what I’d suggest:
- Look at what you’re offering. Is it really wellness—or just a shiny calculator?;
- Make sure it addresses real pain points, not just plan balances;
- Lean into tech, but don’t lose the human touch; and
- Partner with platforms that help you scale without losing control of your client relationships.
I didn’t become a believer in financial wellness because I liked the concept. I became one because I saw the data. I saw the outcomes. I saw the people. I saw how it could be done right—not as an afterthought, but as a core strategy for engagement and growth.
This isn’t a passing trend; it’s the future of retirement readiness. The advisers who embrace it now will be the ones shaping what comes next.
Todd Lacey is president of Financial Finesse.
This feature is to provide general information only, does not constitute legal or tax advice, and cannot be used or substituted for legal or tax advice. Any opinions of the author do not necessarily reflect the stance of ISS STOXX or its affiliates.
