Episode summary
Managing Total Wealth: What it Means and Why it Matters
Summary
Jeffery Coyle says Libretto is built around managing “total wealth,” not just a client’s investment portfolio. That means folding in homes, mortgages, human capital, Social Security, pensions, businesses, private assets, and expected estate inflows so an adviser can build a more complete financial picture and fill the gaps a standard 60/40 model leaves open.
Coyle argues that this approach is really a risk-management discipline. He says the goal is not to run a simulation and hope for the best, but to make clients more durable in advance with hedges, protective reserves, and insurance solutions aimed at things that “can’t fail.” In his view, total wealth planning helps identify what could derail financial success and how to prepare for it.
He also says the method is scalable and may be even more valuable for mass affluent families, who often underestimate their true balance sheet because they ignore the present value of Social Security and human capital. On AI, Coyle says Libretto uses it throughout onboarding, plan drafting, error-checking, advice support, client communications, and strategy narratives to cut work from hours to minutes.
Key takeaways
- Coyle says Libretto treats a client’s home, future earnings, Social Security, pensions, and private assets as part of one total-wealth balance sheet.
- He argues that a portfolio should act like a completion fund, filling gaps in resources rather than simply tracking a 60/40 model.
- Coyle says risk management is central because advisers should prepare clients to be durable against future shocks, not just simulate them.
- He estimates a mass affluent family with a $900,000 home and $2 million portfolio could be worth closer to $6.5 million once hidden assets are included.
- Coyle says AI now powers onboarding, drafting, error detection, personalization, and client-facing strategy narratives inside the system.
Notable quotes
“we manage total wealth for a client and it's total wealth investing and planning”
“it's more valuable to people of normal levels of wealth. It's really because they can't afford to make mistakes”
“we use AI extensively throughout the system. It's pretty neat”
“what could have taken hours and it's turned it into minutes”
How the episode opens
In today's landscape, what does it mean to manage total wealth? To break it all down for me, I'm joined by Jeff Coyle of Labretto. Jeff, thank you so much for joining me. — Always pleasure to be here. — So, before we dig into that million-dollar question, I do have to ask set the stage for me a little bit. Who is Labretto? Who do you serve? And and what do you ultimately do?
Oh, sure. Sure. you labretto was initially designed to manage the wealth of the most affluent people and it does but our our mission is really to bring those advanced methods to all clients and we're having a lot of good success doing that and so what Labretto really does is we manage total wealth for a client and it's total wealth investing and planning and so what our technology does is it unifies a planning process personalized portfolio construction and then comprehensive risk management into something we call financial structure management And so let's dig into that a little bit.
What does that actually mean?
Well, what you're doing is you're actually managing the total wealth of a client. And this is important. So when an adviser builds a strategy inside of Lorettto, they're actually going to incorporate their clients homes, their mortgages.
They'll fold in their human capital. That's the present value of your future earnings. For most wealth buildinging families, it just dominates their wealth and yet they're normally not aware of it.
Um, you fold in their social security, their pensions. As you work with more complex clients, you incorporate their operating businesses, their properties, their other private assets. And at every level of wealth, you also want to incorporate their expected estate inflows, um, insurance payoffs or transfer structures.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- total wealth management
- risk management
- financial planning
- estate and inheritance
- social security and pensions
Companies and tickers mentioned
- Libretto
Watch the episode
Watch “Managing Total Wealth: What it Means and Why it Matters” on YouTube
Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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