Northwestern Mutual said its Planning Experience program, introduced to reps in October, resulted in more than 30,000 financial plans being created in 2018, according to the company's year-end report. The tool was developed, in part, from the company's acquisition of LearnVest in 2015.
The software lets clients and the company's employees work together to "set comprehensive lifelong and temporary financial goals," according to a report in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, including strategies for maximizing retirement savings, saving for college or repaying student loans. The tool also outputs a financial wellness score.
The tens of thousands of financial plans are part of the company's digital strategy, which also saw underwriting time for life insurance reduced significantly, the company said.
"We’re also competing with the Merrill Lynches of the world and the Bairds of the world to manage clients’ money," explained John Schlifske, the company's CEO, at a Milwaukee business gathering, the newspaper reported. “We think it’s vitally important that you have an advisor plus technology. That’s where I see us going as a company.”
