The report states that two areas that could be impacted by the DOL rule are annuities and robo-advisors, or digital advice platforms.

Regarding the former, Cerulli says that while the investment community increasingly realizes the value of guaranteed income streams, annuities violate the DOL’s proposed rule because they typically are priced with an advisor commission and many manufacturers pay revenue sharing to distributors.

To comply with the new rule, Cerulli says it foresees two main changes in annuity pricing–– pricing products for inclusion on fee-based managed account programs, and adjusting expenses and commissions to be more in line with mutual funds.

“The crux of the challenge for insurance companies is that annuities must compete against other financial products on their value to the consumer and not compensation to the advisor,” the report says. “The Conflict of Interest rule may ultimately be a wake-up call for the insurance industry to evolve the way it does business.”

As for robo-type platforms, Cerulli says their scalable trading technology, algorithmic portfolio construction and reliance on low-cost exchange-traded funds could help B-Ds comply with the DOL rule.

To illustrate that point, it cites the potential impact from two relatively recent purchases of robo-advisors by asset management companies––BlackRock’s acquisition of FutureAdvisor last August, which aims to provide financial advisors and other intermediaries with a digital platform to serve mass affluent investors and millennials; and Invesco’s agreement in January to buy Jemstep, a robo platform that has been popular with advisors.

Cerulli notes that one of the first adopters of BlackRock's FutureAdvisor platform was regional brokerage RBC Wealth Management, which has said the technology platform could help it serve smaller-sized retirement accounts because it charges a flat fee that would comply with the DOL’s proposed rule.

“An offering similar to FutureAdvisor may not be on every B-D’s radar, but it represents the type of innovation that providers need to consider as implementation of the Conflict of Interest rule approaches,” Cerulli says.

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