Fidelity Teams With FundQuest to Make Annuities Available to Fee-Based Advisors
BOSTON, MA, November 30, 2009 -- Fidelity Investments Life Insurance Company (FILI) and FundQuest, a leading fee-based managed account services provider, today announced a new alliance that allows FundQuest to make Fidelity Personal Retirement Annuity® (FPRA), a low-cost, tax-deferred variable annuity, available to fee-based advisors and their clients. The alliance is the first of its kind for Fidelity's annuity and insurance business and represents its entry into the turnkey asset management channel.
Through the alliance, FundQuest has integrated FPRA into its asset allocation modeling capabilities for fee-based advisors. Fidelity will provide annuity-related sales support and access to Fidelity's insurance-licensed sales representatives.
FPRA has been integrated into FundQuest's Wealth Architect™ offering, a leading advisor back-office and investment management platform. Advisory firms employ Wealth Architect to deliver fee-based mutual fund models, unified managed accounts (UMAs), income portfolios, ActivePassive Portfolios®, and Advisor Choice portfolios.
Wealth Architect supports the full advisory cycle, including: client profiling and proposal development, portfolio diagnostics, open-architecture investment management, ongoing account administration and advanced quarterly reporting. Custody and clearing services are provided via established connectivity to Fidelity Institutional Wealth Services®.
"At a time when many investors are looking for ways to get their retirement investments back on track, we are pleased to be able to make FPRA available to fee-based advisors seeking ways to further help their clients maximize their tax-deferred investment strategies," said Joan Bloom, executive vice president, Fidelity Investments Life Insurance Company.
Originally introduced in 2005 for direct sale to customers, FPRA's simplified design makes it an easy-to-understand, tax-deferred retirement investment option for many investors. Its costs are among the lowest in the industry, and its transparent features are void of the traditional sales, maintenance or surrender fees associated with many annuity products. [Note: FPRA does not have a guaranteed minimum death benefit.] The product's more than 50 investment options also accommodate a wide range of investing needs and styles.
"We believe FPRA will provide advisors with an investment option for managing complex retirement and tax-planning strategies for their clients' portfolios," said Andrew Stavaridis, vice president, National Accounts, at FundQuest. "FPRA can also help advisors make their management of portfolios more tax efficient."
FPRA is now available to more than 40 registered investment advisory firms via FundQuest. Advisory firms that want to learn more about FundQuest's platform and how to make FPRA available to their clients can visit www.fundquest.com/usa or call 888.253.9169. For additional information about Fidelity Investment Life Insurance Company and FPRA, advisors can also visit www.fidelityinsuranceagency.com/advisor or call 617.392.1577.
About Fidelity Investments Life Insurance Company
Established in 1987, Fidelity Investments Life Insurance Company (FILI), and for New York residents, Empire Fidelity Investments Life Insurance Company®, New York, N.Y., develop and market their own insurance products, in addition to offering access to a number of insurance products from other from well-known carriers. FILI maintains an A+ (strong) rating from S&P and an A+ (superior, 2nd highest) rating from A.M. Best.
About Fidelity Investments
Fidelity Investments is one of the world's largest providers of financial services, with assets under administration of nearly $3.1 trillion, including managed assets of more than $1.4 trillion as of Oct. 31, 2009. Fidelity offers investment management, retirement planning, brokerage, and human resources and benefits outsourcing services to over 20 million individuals and institutions as well as through 5,000 financial intermediary firms. The firm is the largest mutual fund company in the United States, the No. 1 provider of workplace retirement savings plans, the largest mutual fund supermarket, a leading online brokerage firm and one of the largest providers of custody and clearing services to financial professionals. For more information about Fidelity Investments, visit www.fidelity.com.
About FundQuest
FundQuest is a partner to RIAs, independent advisers, banks, and insurance broker-dealers to help them grow, control expenses, improve profitability, and expand their product and services offerings. FundQuest's services are employed by more than 180 financial advisory firms. The company's advanced technology, objective investment research, high quality back-office operations, and sales support services enable financial advisers to deliver highly competitive personal wealth management services.
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