April 22, 2024

2024 RPAY – Christopher DeAndrea, Webber Advisors

Reported by

Business at a Glance as of 12/31/23

Location: Duncansville, Pennsylvania
How many plan assets do you have under advisement? $261M
What is your median plan size (in assets)? $6.9M
How many plans do you have under administration? 36
How many participants in total do you serve? 4,593
Parent firm: N/A

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

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DeAndrea: Our retirement plan practice at Webber Advisors consists of four advisers (including myself), two administrative assistants, and an in-house TPA (seven team members). Webber Advisors handles retirement plan advising/consulting as well as financial planning and wealth management, which is why I believe we’re well positioned for the future within our industry. I believe our practice has a unique service model with a customized hands-on approach. We are not a one-size-fits-all practice. Our service model is set up to be a true resource for plan participants and to make the lives easier for plan sponsors. Initially, I started on the wealth management side, but my interests turned to the retirement plan side when I identified the need for truly helping people who are trying to save for retirement. I wanted to have an impact earlier in the process instead of waiting for someone to get close to retirement and attempting to put a plan in place for them. I was able to see that regular people were not saving enough for retirement in their employer-sponsored plans or they didn’t have access to a plan at all. Ultimately, that is why I made the shift to advising on retirement plans and I hope that I’ve made a positive impact for our plans and plan participants over the years. The role that I’m in now allows me to continue talking about investments and the market (to a lesser extent), but more than anything, it allows me to help people.

PLANADVISER: How is your team unique/competitive in the marketplace?

DeAndrea: Our team is unique at Webber Advisors because we can work with large plans all the way down to start-ups and be able to scale our service model to provide a hands-on approach regardless of your plan size. We want to help you build a plan that you’re excited to tell your new hires about when you’re onboarding them. We can leverage technology and the human element to find solutions that best fit our client’s needs. We specifically utilize this approach with our three-pronged financial wellness offering for plan participants, which drives better client engagement and planning. We’re able to provide additional reporting that helps us measure the success of the plan and where we need more education. One other thing that we’ve noticed the last few years is clients/prospects wanting to modernize their processes and find efficiencies. Based off that observation, we now offer an in-house third-party administrator (TPA). Under one roof, we can handle retirement plan consulting, financial wellness/education and administration/compliance services. This has given us a uniqueness and differentiator because it does create efficiencies and makes things easier for plan sponsors (especially start-ups and micro plans). Lastly, to wrap things up, our plan sponsors don’t view us as their “adviser”; they view us as a partner and an extension of their business.

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

DeAndrea: I think there are two main challenges that the retirement plan industry faces. The first challenge mainly impacts retirement plan practices that also offer financial planning and wealth management services. Retirement plan recordkeeping pricing has come down in most recent years and recordkeepers are looking for new avenues to drive revenue. Some recordkeepers have begun monetizing plan participants and marketing individual services outside of the retirement plan as participants transition into retirement. The challenge will be for retirement plan practices that offer financial wellness, education, financial planning and wealth management to show the value in an all-encompassing holistic approach to the individual participants. This includes their spouses, partners, families, healthcare, Medicare, Social Security, tax advisers, estate planning, etc. There will be a place for participants that simply want to continue working with recordkeepers on an induvial level outside of the plan, but most people need to have a more in-depth discussion. The second challenge, which will be discussed more down below, is closing the coverage gap. Obviously, my goal is to inform as many businesses as possible that do not currently offer a plan. My task is to make them aware of the SECURE Act 2.0 of 2022 provisions that may alleviate any concerns they may have had about starting a plan. If I (and the industry) cannot do a better job in this space, the private sector advisers may be competing against a federally run program. That is a huge risk to our practice and the industry.

PLANADVISER: Why do you feel that retirement plan advisers should get involved in the expansion of the DC retirement plan system to cover more employers and, in doing so, more employees?

DeAndrea: First and foremost, retirement plan advisers should get involved in the expansion of the DC retirement plan system because it’s the right thing to do. In Pennsylvania alone, nearly 2 million workers currently do not have access to a workplace retirement program. Approximately 40% of American companies do not offer retirement plans to their employees. A significant portion of that 40% are small to medium-sized businesses with fewer than 100 employees. For the most part, retirement plan advisers are targeting that same 60% of businesses that already offer a retirement to meet business development goals. This is being done because more revenue will be generated by targeting plans already with assets, but I believe it’s a huge disservice to forget about everyone else. If we do not come together as an industry and do a better job to close the coverage gap there is the chance that a federally run program will be put in place where the government is making the match on behalf of the employers. What an employer would not want to offload that cost to the government? However, this offering will most likely be a one-size-fits-all solution. How would education be handled? Who is helping measure the success of the plan and how it impacts the business as a whole? I believe private sector advisers add much more value to businesses in this space, but all of that could be for nothing if we cannot get better in the start-up/micro plan space.

PLANADVISER: What are the biggest stumbling blocks to adding more tax-advantaged retirement savings opportunities in the workforce? What are you doing to try and overcome them?

DeAndrea: I believe the main stumbling blocks to adding more tax-advantaged retirement plans have been evident for awhile, which is why the SECURE Act 2.0 included several provisions to help address the barriers. Outside of cost, some of the other barriers to offering an employer-sponsored retirement plans are the administration of the plan, potential liability, the time associated with running the plan, compliance testing, audits, etc. As a retirement plan specialist, I simply make these businesses aware that at some point soon they may be required to offer a plan and they’ll have to understand retirement plan legislation, industry trends, discuss investments and education, and they may not have a say in who is running the show. When speaking with a potential start-up opportunity I can demonstrate Webber Advisors value by being able to essentially remove all their concerns they had about starting a retirement plan. I’ve taken it upon myself to become an expert in the micro-startup plan space, which is why our team created a “start-up/small market solution” utilizing our in-house TPA and investment fiduciary services. As long as we partner with a good recordkeeper our team can essentially take most of the work off of the plan sponsor’s plate. With the available tax credits through SECURE Act 2.0, the associated costs are eliminated or minimized. I also help a business realize the potential long-term costs to the company if they do not offer a plan and employees cannot retire.

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April 22, 2024

2024 RPAY – Ben Duckett, Morgan Stanley

Reported by

Maria Kofman

Business at a Glance as of 12/31/23

Location: Beverly Hills, California
How many plan assets do you have under advisement? $663M
What is your median plan size (in assets)? $25M
How many plans do you have under administration? 85
How many participants in total do you serve? 35,000
Parent firm: Morgan Stanley Graystone

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

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Duckett: I am a part of a seven-person team with Morgan Stanley Graystone. We serve our clients in the capacity of investment fiduciary and plan consultants, and we absolutely love what we do. I have three partners and three support professionals, and everyone on the team shares the same passion, care, diligence and integrity to serve our clients and plan participants to the highest standard.

My focus has always been on helping others, as my background before joining Morgan Stanley was as a combat search-and-rescue helicopter crew chief with the U.S. Air Force. As I began to embark on starting a family, I assessed my career path and decided to shift from military service to retirement plan consulting. I had seen through my time at the military that general financial education for the average person was lacking and that there was a service I could provide to others. At the time, my father was also a financial adviser at Morgan Stanley, which is how I began my financial career with Morgan Stanley. I had the privilege of working with and learning from my father, and I found that through retirement plan consulting, I was able to provide the largest impact to as many people as possible. My passion and interest for this career grew as I saw the difference that my team and I are able to make, and I feel lucky to be in the position to continue making a positive impact on others.

PLANADVISER: How is your team unique/competitive in the marketplace?

Duckett: We feel that we are unique in that we have an age-, gender- and specialty-diversified team. The age of our partners ranges from 33 to 52, which is important for several reasons. One reason is that we can relate to plan participants at almost any age. This is especially important when speaking with younger individuals about the importance of saving for retirement. When it comes to retirement savings, often the time you have to save before retirement is one of the most important factors. We often say, ‘A plan is only as good as participants understand it to be,’ which is why we put a significant emphasis on participant support. Additionally, our age diversification allows us to have a succession plan for our business to ensure that our team will always be able to serve our clients. My partners and I consciously have differing specialties, as we have a CIMA, CFP, QPFC and CRPS, all within our team. This ensures that no matter what we need to address or solve for a client, we have the knowledge within our team to get it done. In addition to this, we have the backing and robust resources of Morgan Stanley. Our offering is unique in that we do not provide a retirement plan platform, nor do we implement any Morgan Stanley/proprietary funds within a retirement plan; we only provide top-tier consultative value and support.

PLANADVISER: Are you connected to a wealth management division? If so, please explain how you work for them and your goals for coordination. If not, please explain whether you plan to be in the future, or not, and why.

Duckett: As Graystone advisers within Morgan Stanley, we are connected with a wealth management division. This is an incredible value add to the clients that we serve in that our team operates as plan specialist to ensure the retirement plan is effective and efficient, and we coordinate with the best wealth managers in the world at Morgan Stanley to provide direct support to participants. We recognize that the 401(k) plan is just one slice of any person’s financial world and that to provide effective well-rounded support, we must be able to speak to the other areas of a participant’s finances. Our wealth management division and team of wealth management colleagues are able to work with participants to construct financial plans, conduct on-site financial education meetings and offer the best solutions and services that could benefit the participant. We also provide ongoing communication, access to our digital Retirement Learning Center and the ability to connect with an adviser via the click of a button. Last but not least, we host a financial education webinar almost every Wednesday, which we refer to as “Wellness Wednesdays,” that every participant of each plan we support can attend. We cover a wide range of financial topics to ensure that we and our wealth management colleagues are able to provide a wide spectrum of support and guidance. Our goal is to help as many people feel financially confident and secure as possible, which in turn only helps to improve a person’s retirement readiness.

PLANADVISER: Why do you feel that retirement plan advisers should get involved in the expansion of the DC retirement plan system to cover more employers and, in doing so, more employees?

Duckett: Providing high quality support and service to DC retirement plans is one of the most effective ways to deliver a positive impact to the most amount of people. When a retirement plan is well-run, effective and efficient, you provide value to every participant who is a part of that plan. In turn, those participants utilize the plan and better their own retirement readiness through increased contributions, benefitting from lower plan expenses, better investment solutions, etc. Additionally, if a participant leaves a company with a well-run and effective 401(k), that participant can then become an advocate for well-run plans and encourage their next employer to focus on their own company’s 401(k). The positive impact across the workforce is exponential. As we are seeing with recent legislation (SECURE 2.0 Act), employer-sponsored retirement plans are essential in every industry and company. The burden of saving for retirement is almost entirely the responsibility of the individual participant, and proper guidance on how to save, invest and plan for retirement is invaluable, as everyone should have the ability to retire, or at least provide themselves the option to.

PLANADVISER: What are the biggest stumbling blocks to adding more tax-advantaged retirement savings opportunities in the workforce? What are you doing to try and overcome them?

Duckett: The biggest stumbling blocks that we see are proper education, bandwidth to address retirement savings and lack of a financial plan. When it comes to education, many plan sponsors and participants are not retirement plan experts. Understanding the importance of retirement savings and the essentials of how to utilize a retirement plan most effectively are not everyone’s area of expertise—or area of interest, for that matter. We do our best to address this by providing educational material, webinars, meetings and information to the participants and plan sponsors. Through our network of wealth managers at Morgan Stanley, we are able to meet with participants in person almost anywhere in the country. We have also found, as mentioned in my prior answer, that when a participant has a financial plan, they feel more confident and assured of their finances and budget and are much more likely to allocate a deferral percentage, even if it just a start, to their 401(k) account. We will work with any participant to build a financial plan for them, as we feel that having a plan is integral to anyone’s financial strategy.