Project Background
Founded in 1984, Newport Group is a leading retirement services and asset management firm specializing in the creative design, funding and administration of qualified and non-qualified retirement plans, as well as co-fiduciary investment analysis services. Through its strategic alliances and joint ventures with other firms in the financial services arena, Newport is uniquely positioned to satisfy the distinct financial needs of employers and employees, and has done so for hundreds of the country’s largest and best-known companies.
The Challenge
Newport Group is recognized throughout its industry as a leader in technology innovation, and providing its plan sponsors and participants with cutting-edge, best-in-class capabilities and services. One of these services is a state-of-the-art website, called Plandestination.com, that provides plan participants with a secure, intuitive way to access, manage and monitor their retirement and deferred compensation accounts.
As part of Plandestination.com, Newport Group wanted to offer participants an interactive retirement and personal financial planning tool. This tool needed to be integrated with Newport’s existing systems, so that participants’ current account information could be incorporated in the tool, providing comprehensive, real-time analysis and recommendations.
The Solution
Leveraging VisualCalc’s technical capabilities in developing user-centric, intuitive, web-based graphical financial analysis software, and Newport Group’s extensive knowledge and experience in the retirement and executive benefits market, Newport Group and VisualCalc formed a joint product team to design and develop a new, web-based interactive retirement and personal planning solution designed specifically for retirement services and executive benefit providers. This solution, called My Forecast, is now integrated in Plandestination.com, and available to all of Newport’s qualified retirement plan and non-qualified deferred compensation plan clients.
The Results
Newport’s My Forecast is the industry’s first interactive retirement and personal financial planning solution that fully integrates with a participant’s qualified retirement and non-qualified deferred compensation accounts, as well as with outside taxable and tax-deferred accounts. The solution provides a comprehensive, personal planning experience that covers all of an individual’s retirement and non-retirement needs. This new personal planning solution also incorporates the actual investment options available to the participant, as well as the current balance and asset allocation within each account.
Newport’s My Forecast helps plan participants answer the three most commonly asked questions:
1. How much do I need to save?
2. How should I invest my savings?
3. How am I doing according to my plan?
Using a participant’s current financial situation, and future financial goals, Newport’s My Forecast provides comprehensive, cash flow-based projections of the user’s future financial picture and ability to achieve their retirement and non-retirement goals. My Forecast also performs an asset allocation analysis of the participant’s in-plan assets, and recommends asset allocation and investment strategies according to the individual’s risk profile. The user can then perform interactive “what if” analyses by modifying any number of variables and viewing, in real-time, the resulting changes to their projections and recommendations. And, since My Forecast is fully integrated within a participant’s accounts, they can monitor the progress of their plan on a real-time basis as their account balances grow and change over time.
In addition, through Newport’s advisor portal, 3rd party investment advisors and broker-dealers can use My Forecast to customize the planning projections and investment advice delivered to participants just by incorporating their own model portfolios/asset allocation strategies along with their respective risk/return assumptions.
