Services Overview
Banks, Brokerage Firms, Trust Companies, Regulatory Agencies, Insurance Companies
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Banks, Brokerage Firms, Trust Companies, Regulatory Agencies, Insurance Companies
1. “Review & Recommend”. As described below, our team can perform an assessment of an organization’s current unique assets situation, and recommend steps for improvement.
2. Decide Whether to Offer Unique Asset Services. Should an organization even offer unique asset services? We can make the arguments pro and con, so management can make an informed decision.
3. Decide Which Solutions to Offer. There are seven types of unique assets. We can help management decide which solutions to offer, for which types of assets.
4. Have Clients Pay for Services They Consume. There are time and money costs associated with managing unique assets. We can provide information identifying the costs so they can be properly allocated.
5. Scrub Irrevocable Trust Holdings. We can review irrevocable trust inventories to identify unique assets-related coding errors and inconsistencies.
6. Revamp Organizational Structure. Why reinvent the wheel? We can suggest proven successful organizational charts for unique asset administration.
7. Revise Onboarding Process. Strong unique asset onboarding processes avoid downstream headaches. We know how the industry’s top performers do it.
8. Update Policies, Procedures & Checklists covering 7 asset types (real estate, closely-held businesses, life insurance, loans & notes, mineral oil and gas assets, intellectual property, and tangible assets). Use our library of best practices as-is or modify as needed. Now everyone will be doing the right thing, time after time.
9. In-House vs. Outsource. Should in-house staff provide the solutions? Third-party vendors? A combination of the two? We can help make the right choice.
10. Select Third-Party Vendors. Let us help draft Requests for Proposal (“RFPs”), select prospective vendors, assist with the interviews, recommend the winner, and suggest contract features:
11. Optimize Trust Accounting System. We can help optimize the manner in which trust accounting and/or reporting systems are utilized, to improve the organization’s unique asset administration.
12. Management Reports. From trust accounting system data we can help create dashboards, benchmarks, “trip wires” and other management reports.
13. Review Fee Schedules. We can reengineer fee schedules so they cover both direct and indirect costs associated with furnishing unique asset-related services.
14. Training. UAP can train affected stakeholders on unique asset-related changes. Site visit or webinar.
15. Develop Remediation Procedures. We can provide powerful, effective remediation procedures for every type of unique asset.
16. Select Assets for Remediation. Political and/or other factors may keep an organization from remediating every unique asset held in an irrevocable account. We can help shrink this universe.
17. Remediate Accounts. If in-house staff is inexperienced remediating unique assets, we can teach them how to do it (or remediate the entire portfolio ourselves).
18. Value Assets (& Gather Documents). Knowing a unique asset’s value is a must. Spardata can value virtually any unique asset.
19. Annual Reviews. We can help prepare for regulatory examination, compliance reviews and internal audits.
20. Exam Preparation. We can help prepare for regulatory examination, compliance reviews and/or internal audits.
21. Post-Exam Fixes. We can help address any criticisms or adverse findings promptly.
22. Survey the Competition. The right fee varies from region to region. UAP uses “secret shopper” techniques to learn whether the fees being charged are competitive.
23. Update Marketing Materials. We can review and help revamp marketing materials (print, internet, social media etc.) for unique asset-related consistency and clarity.
24. Develop a Communications Plan. We can help identify internal and external audiences to be informed, and develop customized messaging for them.
25. Communicate the Vision. At any stage in the process, we can help management communicate its vision (and the background information supporting the vision) to key audiences.
26. Serve as “Unique Asset Trust Advisor”. When trustees prefer not to manage unique assets, we can serve as your “unique asset trust advisor” in a fiduciary capacity, assuming responsibility for their management and valuation.
27. Serve as “Distribution Trust Advisor”. Squabbling beneficiaries often argue over distributions (see #28). We can serve as your “distribution trust advisor” in a fiduciary capacity, directing the administrative trustee with respect to distributions.
28. Resolve beneficiary disputes. Squabbling beneficiaries can make it tough to be a trustee (especially if a family business is involved. Beneficiaries working in the business like plowing back the profits while non-active beneficiaries prefer bigger checks.) We are successful getting beneficiaries to stop squabbling.