Insurance advisors who work with well-heeled clients are looking for all-encompassing support services and competitive pricing for products geared toward this client demographic.

Advisors surveyed for this year’s Insurance Advisors’ Report Card were asked to rate their firms’ and managing general agencies’ (MGAs) “products and support for high net-worth clients.” The firms and MGAs that received the highest praise offer centralized, comprehensive planning and products geared toward high-net worth (HNW) clients at a good price.

For Toronto-based PPI Advisory, these services are a priority, which explains its top rating of 9.2 in the category.

Says a PPI Advisory advisor in Quebec: “[The company] understands the needs of HNW entrepreneurs, their advisors and, most important, their families.”

PPI Advisory’s focus on catering to HNW clients is what sets the firm apart, says its president, Yves Bergeron. As well, he adds, a partnership formed in 2011 with HighView Asset Management Ltd. of Oakville, Ont., will give PPI Advisory’s reps further access to the expertise they need to service the HNW market properly.

“Our advisors cannot be experts in all of the spaces of all of the planning and services they’re offering to HNW clients,” Bergeron says. “So, we’re offering them the opportunity to benefit from a strategic relationship with HighView, which specializes in the portfolio-management space.”

Another firm that has seen growth in its support for HNW clients is Winnipeg-based Great-West Life Assurance Co. (GWL), which saw its rating in the category jump to 8.3 from 7.5 in 2011. GWL’s advisors are impressed with a new HNW-focused platform that the firm implemented this past year.

“They’re really trying to become a holistic, one-stop shop for clients,” says a GWL advisor in Manitoba, “and they’re making a lot of structural changes to bring their investment side and insurance side closer together.”

GWL’s HNW platform is offered to advisors in the firm’s Gold Key distribution network; the service includes a new preferred series of pricing for the GWL Preferred Series 1 and 2 segregated funds.

“It’s a very good platform that offers a lot of improvements,” says Hugh Moncreiff, senior vice president GWL’s Gold Key distribution network. “The sales of our new products have surpassed our expectations and have received a lot of [praise] from our advisors.”

On the other hand, some advisors with Mississauga, Ont.-based IDC Worldsource Insurance Network Inc. (IDC WIN) were underwhelmed with the MGA’s efforts in this area, rating it at 8.3 in the category vs 8.8 last year.

“There are not enough products or training,” says an IDC WIN advisor in Ontario regarding the firm’s HNW offerings.

Adds a colleague in Manitoba: “I have a client with $50 million [in assets], and I can’t do much of anything innovative for him.”

In turn, IDC WIN’s president, Ron Madzia, says advisors have access to a dedicated individual who focuses on high-end cases and various educational programs that help advisors serve their HNW clients. But, he posits, advisors’ dissatisfaction may be because certain service improvements were put on hold when IDC Financial Inc. merged with Worldsource Insurance Network Inc. in July 2011: “We realized, ‘What was the point of [making changes] if we might have to redo them?'” Thus, he adds, IDC WIN now intends to add many new services for advisors and their clients.

Advisors with Woodbridge, Ont.-based Hub Financial Inc. also feel that the MGA lacks support for the HNW market and thus rated it lower this year, at 7.4 vs 7.7 in 2011. However, they feel the way the MGA prices its products for the HNW is very competitive.

“There are no specialized products or services,” says a Hub advisor in Alberta. “But because their pricing is very good, I can create very competitive portfolios for my clients.”

However, John Lutrin, Hub’s executive vice president and chief marketing officer, says HNW services are available: “We have staff on hand who are equipped to deal with the HNW market and provide case-consultation support for tax and estate planning.”

© 2012 Investment Executive. All rights reserved.