New Practice Management Portal Offers Advice
Industry veterans David J. Drucker and Kristofor R. Behn have launched Practice Lifecycle LLC, a new practice management portal for financial advisors. Built and fueled by some of the most respected practitioners, coaches and consultants in the industry, the portal is carefully includes information advisors need to make both day-to-day and long-term strategic practice management decisions. Financial Advisor magazine will serve as a distribution partner.
"One feature of Practice Lifecycle that makes it so radically different from other sources of practice management information is its decision trees and checklists," says co-founder Behn. By working through the portal‚s decision trees, subscribers can pinpoint exactly the content and links that meet their needs rather than taking the needle-in-a-haystack approach so common with most periodicals and Web-based content. Practice Lifecycle also offers MP3 podcasts of each month‚s feature articles.
"Practice Lifecycle is divided into five segments that track the advisor‚s passage from practice start-up through growth and maturation and, eventually, business succession," adds Behn.
Behn and partner David Drucker have an established history of helping advisors through their consulting firm, Practice Merger Consultants.
Top names in the industry have agreed to contribute insights, inspiration and advice, including: Norm Boone, Joel Bruckenstein, Kevin Condon, Tom Giachetti, David Goad, Brent Hicks, Deena Katz, Derrick Kinney, Nancy Lininger, Dan Moisand, Eric Schwartz, D. Shannon, Kirk Hulett and Marie Swift. A full contributor list is available upon request.
"Regular contributions from today‚s industry leaders will help advisors operate their practices with a much-needed virtual business consultant by their side," says Drucker. "Our goal is to level the playing field for all advisors by offering exclusive access to industry insiders that will advance the advisor‚s practice."
An annual subscription is $399 ($39.95 for a monthly payment plan). You may view the Practice Lifecycle portal demo mode at www.PracticeLifecyle.com.


Services For Top Customers
The Chubb Group of Insurance Companies has launched Signature Suite, an array of complimentary luxury services for its high-net-worth and family-office customers. This comprehensive risk-management program, which includes access to personal security consultants, travel-safety experts, personal staff advisors and collections-management tools, is tailored to protect and enhance the lifestyles of affluent individuals.
Signature Suite offers customers several risk-mitigation services, including personal and family security, travel safety and emergency medical, personal staff risk management and collections management tools. Additional information can be found at www.chubb.com/personal.

MassMutual Offers Roth 401(k) And 403(b) Accounts With Comprehensive Education Tools
MassMutual Retirement Services will offer the Roth account option for its 401(k) and 403(b) plans in mid-2006, and has already begun developing comprehensive educational tools for sponsors, advisors and participants. The new Roth feature will allow plan sponsors to offer another tax-advantaged retirement savings option.
MassMutual is developing an extensive education campaign to guide plan sponsors through the decision-making process. A Roth Q &A and a white paper are already available on MassMutual's plan sponsor Web site.
For more information about MassMutual Retirement Services‚ Roth 401(k) and 403(b) option, please call (888) 626-4911 or visit http://www.massmutual.com/retire.

Monte Carlo Forecasting Added
Ibbotson Associates has released iPlan 2.0, the latest version of its Web-based investment planning software, including Monte Carlo simulation allowing advisors to forecast wealth and income based on individual client information. The forecast incorporates such factors as cash flows, minimum required distributions and taxes.
iPlan can be branded with a firm‚s logos and color schemes, and is designed to incorporate specific product recommendations. It can also be configured in a variety of ways to accommodate all the job functions in an organization.

No-Load Global Value Fund
Wintergreen Advisers LLC has introduced the no-load Wintergreen Fund, a global value offering. It‚s expected that the fund will invest substantially in foreign securities, perhaps up to 100%. The minimum investment requirement is $10,000 for regular accounts and $3,000 for IRA‚s.
For more information, call 1-888-GOTOGREEN (1-888-468-6473) or visit www.WintergreenFund.com.

Lifetime Income Builder
The Hartford Financial Services Group Inc. has launched The Hartford‚s Lifetime Income Builder, a new guaranteed minimum lifetime withdrawal feature for its variable annuity products. An investor who chooses the feature can receive guaranteed return of principal for themselves or beneficiaries, retirement income that cannot be outlived and annual review to determine eligibility for increased income payments.
For more information go to www.thehartford.com.