Beyond ETFs: How IFAs Can Enhance Client Portfolios with Explicit Protection

As an Independent Financial Adviser (IFA), balancing growth potential with risk management is a reoccurring theme clients bring to you and finding investments that offer it are central to your role. So, it’s not surprising that Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs) have become a cornerstone of modern portfolio construction due to their efficiency, transparency and diversification. But what if you could go further - offering clients explicit protection alongside ETF exposure?

At Hilbert Investment Services, we’ve developed retirement-focused solutions that empower advisers to do just that.

ETFs: A Strong Foundation for Flexible Advice

ETFs provide:

• Cost-effective market access
• Daily liquidity and transparency
• Broad diversification across asset classes

These features make ETFs ideal for building scalable, compliant portfolios. However, in today’s volatile markets, clients especially those nearing retirement or with defined financial goals are increasingly seeking certainty.

Retirement investing requires a delicate balance: preserving capital, generating income, and participating in long-term market growth. Traditional Model Portfolio Services (MPS) have been slow to incorporate outcome-based principles such as:

• Defining risk parameters upfront
• Setting clear expectations around potential losses
• Establishing mechanisms to mitigate major market declines

Adding Explicit Protection: A Differentiator for Advisers

Hilbert’s MPS Protect 90 is designed to help advisers offer:

• Up to 90% capital protection, which grows with the portfolio
• Exposure to a performance basket of ETFs, selected with input from BlackRock
• Protection backed by Munich Re Group, a global insurer

This structure enables advisers to deliver growth with guardrails—helping clients stay invested with confidence.

How It Works: The Dual Basket Approach

The evolution of ETFs has unlocked new possibilities for integrating protection directly into portfolio design. Their liquidity, transparency, and flexibility allow for precise combinations of exposures.

Hilbert’s solution uses a dual basket structure:

• Performance Basket – Growth-focused ETFs
• Defensive Basket – Designed to preserve capital and manage downside risk

This dynamic allocation enables quarterly growth lock-ins while maintaining a protective buffer, making the portfolio both responsive and resilient.

Why It Matters for Your Clients

Today’s retirees face challenges such as higher inflation, market volatility, and longer life expectancy. Retirement portfolios must do more than deliver returns—they must sustain lifestyles, manage withdrawals, and withstand market shocks.

Clients benefit from:

• Secure Capital Option – Protects a defined portion of their investment
• Quarterly Growth Lock-ins – Regularly captures gains, ideal for retirement planning
• Sequence Risk Management – Minimises the impact of early retirement market downturns

These features are particularly valuable for clients who:

• are approaching or in retirement
• have defined investment horizons
• maybe worried about increasing volatility in markets

Adviser Benefits: Suitability, Differentiation, and Peace of Mind

Hilbert Protect 90 is part of a new wave of innovation tailored for investors approaching or in retirement. It combines:

• ETF-driven market exposure
• Daily capital protection, increasing with portfolio growth
• Insurance-backed security, provided by Munich Re Group

Oversight is built into the solution. The Hilbert Investment Team conducts a Quarterly Risk and Performance Review, ensuring the protection mechanism evolves with market conditions.

This reflects a broader philosophy: protection should be active, not static—adapting to both markets and investor needs.

Hilbert’s protected solutions are:

• Regulated and transparent
• Available via GIA, ISA, and SIPP wrappers
• Designed to support suitability and long-term outcomes

They also help advisers differentiate their offering by going beyond traditional diversification.

Final Thought: ETFs Are the Starting Point—Protection Is the Value Add

As an IFA, your role is to guide clients through uncertainty. By combining ETFs with explicit protection, you can offer portfolios that are not only efficient—but resilient.

Hilbert Protect 90 demonstrates how outcome-oriented investing principles can be applied in a flexible, transparent context. With ETF efficiency, active oversight, and insurance-backed protection, it offers a model for retirement portfolios that are steady, adaptable, and built for long-term success.

Retirement investing has always been about balance. Today, clients no longer need to choose between protection and participation - they can have both with Hilbert Protect 90.

For more information on Hilbert Protect 90 visit our website, contact our team or download our Client brochure to explore how Hilbert’s protected solutions can support your advice process.

Please note that Hilbert Investment Solutions does not provide investment advice or make personal recommendations. The value of investments can go down as well as up. Capital is at risk.