Philip Steele
Phillip Steele will not work with just any plan sponsor—he requires a certain level of commitment. Steele offers a high-touch financial planning model that requires that a plan sponsor go through a conversion from the current recordkeeper to Steele’s partnering third-party administrator (TPA) and commit to making participants available for quarterly individualized meetings. “We walk them through the process to let them know what we need, before we sign papers,” Steele explains. “The good-fit clients for us are those that understand and value our importance.” Those private sessions can take as little as 10 minutes, or as long as an hour.
As for the requirement that all clients have to go through a conversion, Steele says, “If I have to plug into another platform, our model doesn’t work.” All of his clients are unbundled plans that are recordkept by a particular TPA, DRS in Colorado, and clear through Wilmington Trust. Those strategic partners are flexible with Pension Architects in developing the plans, such as allowing plan design customization and the ability to give Steele’s firm access to participant records to facilitate his financial planning model. “If we were on a large national platform, we couldn’t get that flexibility,” Steele says.
Having been in the retirement plan business since the late 1970s, Steele says that he gravitated toward financial planning while working at insurance companies and learning about retirement plans. Steele says he believes “the best way to get people to make good decisions is basic holistic planning.” His high-touch financial planning model for retirement plans is something Steele is very passionate about, and something that his plan sponsor clients appreciate. “I feel true education in a true planning sense is still missing,’ he explains. “If it is going to work, it has to be comprehensive planning.”
When a new client is first taken on, there is a group meeting where Steele explains to the plan participants what is needed to make their financial planning program work (a conversation he has already had with their employer). Participants then are expected to arrive at their individual meeting with information about other plans, such as IRAs, 401(k)s, or 529s, as well as any personal savings information, and their spouse, if they would like. All of the other account information is scanned then into a computer so the information is there for Pension Architects to use when the participant needs help later in the process. Although Steele himself only has participant meetings with two client companies, Pension Architects employs five full-time educators who do nothing but travel to clients and deliver onsite individual quarterly meetings.
Although his model is labor-intensive and expensive, current enrollment and educational programs are lacking. “Participants want someone else to do the heavy lifting, and you want them to understand this is a valuable process,” he says. “[Although] we have an RIA component and have the deep investment ability, that’s not our value proposition. What sets us apart is our education.”
Photo by Michael Justice