Nearly half of all advisors are missing out on a lot of business they could obtain by helping people roll over employer sponsored retirement plan assets, says a new study by Cogent Research.
In addition, helping with rollover issues can lead to other business with the same people, Cogent says.

"As an advisor, you have to understand your niche," says David Loesser, CFP and president of The Estate Planners Group in Washington Crossing, Pa., who has a large number of clients in or near retirement. "That can mean focusing on people near retirement or those going through job transitions, and helping them with rollover accounts."

The value of rollover assets available this year will be nearly $347 billion, according Cogent, a market research firm. Advisors who are highly successful at obtaining business in this market capture an average rollover account size of $355,000, which is 2.4 times larger than those advisors who do not make this market a priority.

The survey of 396 advisors showed that not quite one third (31%) of advisors capture the bulk of rollover assets.

"For most advisors, rollover accounts are still a hit or miss proposition," says David Feltman, managing director for Cogent Syndicated Research. "The failure to seize the rollover initiative is unexpected given the market's size."

Many advisors seem to feel it is worth their time and effort to target this market but there is a large untapped potential here, he says.

"Advisors should communicate at every opportunity during the client prospecting process about their ability to help with these assets," Feltman says. "But they should also target life events, such as job changes, for existing clients. For the advisors who are really pushing and targeting this market, there is a lot of business to be won."

Not only are a lot of baby boomers reaching retirement and may be interested in converting employer sponsored plan assets to traditional IRAs or Roth IRAs, but job transition is common among people in their 30s and 40s now, Feltman says. About one quarter of affluent Americans have assets in the retirement plans of former employers and about half of that group is considering moving the assets, he adds.

Loesser feels that market is not difficult to tap.

"If you are an advisor near Detroit, you target GM workers who are being downsized," he says. "You offer to make the call with them to their employer's retirement plan sponsor. If you just tell the client to make the call themselves, the plan sponsor will talk them out of moving their money.

"An advisor needs to learn about the retirement plans for large employers in their area. Then offer a seminar and tell employees how their works. If you do that, people will be standing in line to do business with you," he predicts.

Peter Maris, CFP and principal at Resource Financial Group in Wilmette, Il., who has been successful at tapping the retirement and rollover market, thinks many advisors just do not think of the smaller potential rollover assets a client may have because they are looking at the bigger picture or thinking of other issues like tax harvesting at this time of year.

"Advisors just forget to ask, but to do a comprehensive financial plan, asking about rollover potential is part of the process of dotting the I's and crossing the T's," he says. "It should be part of the overall check list for each client."

-Karen DeMasters