Integrity Marketing Group expands into wealth management

Integrity Marketing Group has expanded into the wealth management realm with the launch of its wealth management division, Integrity Wealth. Craig Walling, a financial industry veteran with more than 30 years of experience, was named Integrity Wealth’s president.

With more than $46 billion in assets under management and advisement and an extensive network of wealth advisors across all 50 states, Integrity Wealth brings together Integrity’s wealth-focused partner firms to work more comprehensively with the company’s life and health divisions. The goal is to deliver holistic life, health and wealth solutions to millions of American consumers throughout their lifetime, said Bryan W. Adams, Integrity CEO.

 

“I believe life, health and wealth are interconnected,” Adams told InsuranceNewsNet. “People have two main concerns, especially as they grow older: their health and their wealth. A lot of the clients we’ve worked with over the years have asked for 401(k) planning, wealth planning, planning with annuities and we’ve done this in different ways. But we think it’s important to serve people holistically as our clients are focused on their health and their wealth but also want to focus on their legacy, which was where life insurance came in.”

Integrity Wealth “is the third leg of the stool, so to speak,” Adams said. Along with Integrity’s other two pillars of life and health, the firm now gives agents and advisors the ability to access more extensive products and planning solutions.

Adams said he believes Americans are underserved when it comes to their life and health insurance and wealth management.

“Most larger wealth management firms are not focused on the middle market – the everyday people that I grew up with and that most of our clients are today,” he said. “And they are underserved because the larger investment firms want to work with the ultra-affluent. This is an opportunity for us to bring that same type of service, those same type of products and support to every American to make sure that we can help them holistically plan with for their lives.”

Walling spent his childhood years moving around the globe with time spent in Venezuela, Peru, Panama, Australia and the Middle East. After graduating from the University of Cincinnati, Walling embarked on an internationally focused career that has spanned three decades of financial services experience and success. He has held leadership positions at Citibank in locations including Brazil, Greece and Taiwan.

He has also held executive roles for Charles Schwab Europe, U.S. Trust, and UBS Trust, where he was head of the Private Bank and Trust Company in the U.S. and Canada supporting more than 7,000 advisors. Most recently, Walling spent eight years as a Managing Director for Alvarez & Marsal’s Wealth Management Transformation practice. In this role, he interacted closely with Integrity leaders, becoming fully immersed in Integrity’s holistic life, health and wealth vision. Additionally, Walling has held multiple chairman roles on independent boards of directors.

Walling told InsuranceNewsNet he was attracted to join Integrity partly because of its network of 500,000 advisors. “The opportunity to add to and automate that network with wealth-related solutions, is incredibly attractive.”

Much of the financial services industry “is very transaction-oriented,” Walling said.

“Yet we're dealing with a client base that has needs that change, if not yearly, certainly every five years,” he said. “Now we’re able to engage them at one point in time with one set of solutions, irrespective of the need is. I think the beauty of where we are today is technology now allows us to engage that vision. And so to be able to walk with the client throughout their lifetime and intersect the need to talk about content and knowledge, engage in solutions, and move on to the next need is a place in history where we haven't been before.”

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