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David Lau

Life Health > Annuities

Orion Expands Access to DPL's Commission-Free Annuity Marketplace

By John Manganaro

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What You Need to Know

  • The new partnership will allow Orion's advisors to access commission-free annuities and other support resources.
  • Access to annuities is critical for fiduciary advisors who want to serve the holistic needs of their clients, according to DPL founder David Lau.
  • DPL's total annuity sales surpassed $2 billion in 2023, according to Lau.

DPL Financial Partners and Orion Advisor Solutions announced Tuesday an expanded partnership that will build upon the firms’ existing integrations to provide Orion’s fee-based financial advisors with direct access DPL’s marketplace of commission-free annuities, product discovery tools and support from licensed insurance consultants.

Speaking with ThinkAdvisor about the new integration, DPL Founder and CEO David Lau said the advisory marketplace is quickly coming to see the appeal of commission-free annuities and income insurance solutions. Adding these tools is critical for fiduciary advisors who want to serve the holistic needs of their clients and grow their practices, he said.

“Orion is a home base for thousands of advisors and, through this partnership, they now can directly access annuity and insurance solutions to meet needs in the financial plan,” Lau explained. “Access to annuities means advisors can strengthen client relationships and scale their business as part of their fiduciary process and existing workflow.”

A More Holistic Focus

Lau shared these insights a few weeks after Orion senior leaders Natalie Wolfsen, the firm’s CEO, and Brian McLaughlin, president of Orion Advisor Technology, spoke with ThinkAdvisor about the importance of supporting advisors in retirement income planning and insurance. They emphasized the need to provide support for advisors beyond the traditional aspects of investment management, especially when it comes to retirement-focused clients.

Quoted in the new partnership announcement, McLaughlin said Orion is excited to provide its advisors with access to insurance products.

“In an increasingly competitive advisory environment, advisors have told us that bringing their clients’ insurance under the fiduciary umbrella will help to differentiate their firm and offering,” McLaughlin said.

As Lau stressed, Orion’s advisors will gain access to a comprehensive lineup of commission-free annuities and “best-in-class” life, disability and long-term care products. Orion advisors will additionally have direct, integrated access to DPL’s proprietary tools for discovering and comparing annuities by type, benefits and costs. Finally, data feeds from DPL into the Orion Advisor Technology platform enable management of annuity assets alongside other investments in the client’s portfolio.

A Big Milestone for DPL

Reflecting on the progress his firm has made over the past five years since its founding, Lau said he was gratified to see the platform cross $2 billion in total annuity sales last year, while the combined assets under management of advisors on the platform has crossed $1 trillion. He said he always expected to hit these levels, but not necessarily this quickly.

“Those were both really cool milestones to be able to pass in 2023,” Lau said. “As it related to working with Orion, the main reasons advisors have shied away from using annuities on a fee basis in the past have been structural. The right product formats didn’t exist and the tech didn’t exist — or the tech didn’t work on their systems or desktops. We’ve been focused on breaking all that down, and to partner with the likes of Orion is critical to achieving the overall vision.”

Lau said the firm aims to continue to innovate and pursue new integrations in 2024, especially when it comes to improving advisors’ ability to support annuity purchases at scale.

“Annuities have traditionally been sold on an individual, one-off basis,” Lau explained. “Purchases have been taken place between one client and one broker. Well, we have these mega-RIAs out there today that manage many billions of dollars, and they don’t want to open up 10,000 individual annuities. Just like if you’re selling a solution on the asset management side, you don’t want it to be an individual client portfolio thing. We know our solutions have to be scalable.”

Pictured: David Lau

John Manganaro

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