Alera Group is on a tear.
In late March, the Illinois-based independent insurance and financial services firm launched a small market retirement plan solution with Vestwell and Franklin Templeton for employers with fewer than 100 employees—the goal is to bring "large-plan services [to] businesses of all sizes."
A few days later, it announced enhancements to its Pooled Employer Plan (PEP) with The Standard. The latter serves as the pooled plan provider and ERISA 3(16) fiduciary, while the former provides ERISA 3(38) investment management and consulting services.
It's all part of Alera's recent—and rapid—growth, which Christian Mango put into context.
"I've been here a year and a half," Mango, Executive Vice President and National Practice Leader of the firm's Retirement Plan Services division, said. "When I came on board, we had four or five offices focused on the retirement space and probably $2.5 billion in plan assets. We have a lot of M&A opportunities, so my guess is we'll finish this year with 15 offices and about $40 billion in assets."
Going from the proverbial zero to 60 mph that quickly presents obvious challenges, not the least of which is building out the technology platform, which Mango is doing.
"There are a ton of great tech solutions, but so many of them are siloed, single-solution type of things," he explained. "How the [heck] do you layer in all of this [stuff] to make it actually work? That's been a real challenge."
He claimed to receive multiple calls daily from fintechs professing to help, but it's usually with only one problem.
"You can't ask these advisors, home office staff, or clients to use 10 different solutions," Mango added. "From a tech stack perspective, our objective is to own that participant experience, so how do we control that first interaction? If that participant is sitting at their desk and they think of who their 401k plan is with, we want them to think of us…their advisor. That's that first piece. And then how do we engage them? We want to be able to utilize short videos and very targeted education. It could be around enrollment, your investments, financial wellness, or really any of those things. And then how we build that bridge from retirement to wealth. That's what we're building, and that's the goal."
Referencing his time in the financial wellness space, he said engaging the participants and getting them to act is "almost the hardest thing we do. It's not impossible, but it is almost impossible."
However, much can be learned about participants if done the right way.
"You learn that they have real problems, needs, and goals that they will look to you to help solve. The beauty of Alera Group is we have all of those products and services to put in front of those participants to help them. It's not meant to cross-sell or monetize. That’s not the goal or motivation, but we can really help them. We are laser-focused on that."
Help with emergency savings, budgeting, credit card debt, even offering supplemental Medicare and pet insurance, combined with what's provided through partnerships with The Standard, Vestwell, Franklin Templeton, as well as RPAG and Josh Itzoe's Fiduciary Rx, combine to offer a comprehensive suite of services.
And it's unlikely to slow anytime soon if ongoing M&A is any indication.
"When I joined, the focus was to build through M&A," Mango concluded. "Almost immediately, interest rates rose, and challenged the M&A space. Last year, we did a few deals, but not a lot. This year, it's totally different. We've got several deals under LOI, and we have probably five or six others that we are moving into that final stage. So, yeah, it is picking up pretty dramatically for us."
