April 10, 2007 SOURCE: InsuranceNewsNet, Inc.

The report, “As the Mass Affluent Approach Retirement: Opinions of Retirement and Retirement Income Planning,” conducted by Investment News in January 2007, concluded that the mass affluent market is a virtual goldmine for financial advisors.

There is a vast opportunity for advisors, according to the report, in assisting the mass affluent shift from accumulating assets during their working years to managing assets and generating income for their post-career and retirement years. The problem is, most financial advisors think serving the affluent is not as lucrative as catering to the needs of high net worth individuals.

The mass affluent market has been a sleeping dragon for quite sometime now. Recent studies show that financial services companies have failed to take advantage of the mass affluent market because of the lack of products and messages designed for the affluent consumers.

In 2005, when AIG American General surveyed its highest-producing financial advisors, more than 60% of them failed to identify companies offering a service dedicated to the mass affluent.

What is the mass affluent market? The mass affluent market is wedged between the mass market and the wealthy. Also known as the “emerging affluent” and the “near wealthy,” the market is loosely defined as composed of consumers with investable assets between $100,000 and $1 million. Others characterize this segment as having between $250,000 to about $3 million in investible assets.