The Shift Toward Holistic Wealth: What Cerulli's Latest Research Means for the Insurance Industry

The way financial services and insurance clients think about wealth is changing. They don't see their finances in silos — they expect wealth managers to help them connect the dots between insurance, retirement, investments, and more. Recent research from Cerulli Associates confirms this shift: unified managed household, or UMH, strategies are now a top-three priority for over half of managed account sponsors, up from 44% just two years ago.*

And yet many firms and advisors haven’t evolved their services to meet clients expectations for holistic wealth management. Let’s unpack what's driving this shift, what barriers prevent them from integrating their services, and what they can do to overcome them.

Why Holistic Wealth Management Is Gaining Momentum

The concept of unified managed households reflects a broader industry evolution: moving from product-driven, account-level relationships to advice-driven, household-level relationships and fee-based models. Modern clients expect integrated guidance, with advisors who are prepared to discuss their full financial picture.

This presents an opportunity for insurance leaders and advisors: holistic advice creates stickiness and reduces client attrition, so when advisors succeed in offering integrated guidance, they capture more wallet share and help sustain growth. But the converse is also true: When leaders and advisors provide only siloed offerings — with insurance, investments and other business units operating independently — the client experience can feel disjointed. It’s a situation that doesn’t promote customer loyalty and engagement, leaving value on the table.

Many financial professionals recognize the benefits of UMH strategies: According to Cerulli, 52% of managed account sponsors now cite UMH as a top-three priority. So what’s stopping broker-dealers and advisors from turning this knowledge into action? Why haven’t more turned to cohesive wealth offerings?

The Two Barriers Holding Firms Back

Cerulli's research identifies two core barriers to adopting holistic wealth strategies: platform capabilities and culture. For most leaders, these challenges are intertwined

On the platform side, often the problem lies in turnkey asset management platforms, or Third-Party Asset Management Platforms (TAMPs). Many leaders partner with TAMPs rather than operate their own wealth management platforms. Such an approach, Cerulli reports, can be feasible for advisors who generally serve less affluent clients. However, it’s more challenging to rely on TAMPs when managing a diverse book of business that includes wealthier investors. Such platforms have limited capabilities with respect to their technology, products, managed account services and home-office wealth management support services.

Unfortunately, this means TAMP-reliant insurance leaders are at a competitive disadvantage: Modern investors seek more holistic offerings and advisors prefer advanced technology that can help them better serve their clients. TAMPs typically offer neither, leaving both investors and advisors turning to institutions with more robust platforms.

On the culture side, firms are contending with reconciling two clashing realities: Successful wealth management advisors meet or exceed modern client expectations by managing their accounts with holistic advice and a fiduciary standard of care. Insurance agents, however, are accustomed to a product-oriented sales approach. Delivering household-level advice requires new skills, tools, and support structures. Additionally, those advisors who are thriving amid evolving customer expectations aren’t easy to recruit. Firms in the best position to hire top advisors are those with platforms that empower them to do their best work.

The connection between these two barriers is clear: Advisors can't deliver holistic advice without the right platforms, but platform investments can fail without advisors who are ready and willing to leverage their capabilities. Solving for both is the key to successful unification.

What Forward-Thinking Institutions Are Doing

The financial institutions making progress are breaking down silos — organizational, technological, and human — with the right investments and partnerships. Those partnerships, Cerulli reports, are increasingly focused on independent broker-dealers that offer third-party marketing (TPM) platforms.

A marquee example of such success is the evolution of Prudential Advisors’ wealth management program. While in the investment business for more than 20 years, in 2024, Prudential Advisors began a strategic collaboration with LPL Financial, which had invested roughly $500 million in technology in that year alone.

Since then, by leveraging LPL’s specialized, leading-edge platform, Prudential Advisors has accelerated and solidified its position in the market, offering clients a holistic experience that seamlessly integrates insurance, annuities, and investments. The platform also empowers advisors, enabling them to deliver more personalized client experiences while using technology to simplify and enhance communication. And the platform integrates back-office and regulatory compliance functions, helping Prudential Advisors maintain operational efficiency while focusing on client value. With these enhanced capabilities and Prudential Advisors already strong value proposition, its no wonder top wealth advisors from leading firms are taking notice.

Cerulli predicts that other leaders will follow suit with their own TPM collaborations. Those that do could position themselves for success through deliberate steps, such as:

1. Start with strategy, then align technology. Define what "holistic wealth" means for your institution before investing in tools.
2. Invest in advisors. Recruiting infrastructure, training, and scalable support matter as much as the technology itself.
3. Treat unified wealth as a strategic priority. The institutions pulling ahead are aligning incentives across business lines, breaking down internal silos, and committing to a long-term vision.

As client expectations continue to evolve, the shift toward holistic wealth management will become increasingly valuable. Leaders that begin now will have a meaningful headstart.

Overcoming Barriers Through the Right Relationships

The Cerulli data confirms what many insurance firm leaders already sense: The industry is moving toward holistic, household-level wealth management. Advisor readiness and technology integration are real barriers, but not insurmountable ones.

At LPL, we work with more than 1,200 financial institutions to help them build and scale unified wealth programs. We’ve seen firsthand that with the right strategy, the right investment in talent and technology, and the right partners, institutions of all sizes can deliver the unified wealth experience clients increasingly expect.