The Waterlily Results: 59 Clients Invited, 35 Full Assessments, and a Planning Gap That No Longer Exists

Since adopting Waterlily in early 2024, Chris Chen has made it a standard part of his planning process — not an add-on, not an experiment. He uses it for "basically all" of his clients and averages more than two new intake assessments per month.

Here's what changed:

• 59 clients invited to the platform, 35 full assessments completed.

  • Waterlily is now embedded in every initial data collection meeting.

• One client's personalized probability of needing LTC came back at 97%.

  • Generic rules of thumb would never have surfaced that number. That single data point changed the entire financial plan.

• Clients on the other end of the spectrum — 20% probability — get a completely different analysis.

  • potentially leaning on self-funding rather than expensive insurance coverage.

  • The plan matches the person, not a national average.

• Clients arrive at planning conversations ready to act rather than resist.

  • The three-phase structure moves clients from discomfort to budgeting in a single meeting.

• Waterlily doubles as a prospecting tool.

  • Chris sends the intake form to potential clients as a free planning resource, sparking deeper engagement before the first meeting even happens.

"It is totally material. It gives us a better way to plan for it."

The Gap in Every Plan

Chris is a fee-only fiduciary at Insight Financial Strategists. He earns no commissions on insurance products. His entire value proposition rests on unbiased, data-backed advice.

For years, he estimated long-term care costs using a publicly available cost-of-care calculator and a standard industry rule of thumb: clients who need physical care stay in a facility for roughly two and a half years.

The problem? Those are population averages, and averages can be dangerously misleading when you're planning for a single client's financial future.

"We're not average. We're either below average or above average. What if we come up with something where a client might need it for, say, five years? And then we will miss the target by 100%."

With long-term care costs exceeding $100,000 per year, that kind of miscalculation isn't a rounding error — it's financially devastating. And for a fiduciary whose plans have to stand entirely on their own merits, relying on generic benchmarks left a real gap.

Chris needed a way to give each client a personalized estimate grounded in their actual health profile — not national averages.

What He Did: Waterlily in Every Initial Meeting

Chris integrated Waterlily directly into his standard planning workflow. No separate process. No extra meetings. It fits into what he was already doing.

The Workflow

During every initial data collection meeting, Chris sends clients the Waterlily questionnaire. They complete it on their own time. By the next meeting, he has three data points that never existed before:

1. A personalized probability of needing long-term care

2. An estimated duration of care broken into three phases: early, mid, and late

3. A projected cost in both present and future dollars

These aren't industry averages. They're generated from the client's actual health conditions, family history, location, and care preferences — powered by over 500 million data points.

Turning an Unpleasant Conversation into a Planning Session

The three-phase structure is what makes the conversation work. Rather than overwhelming clients with worst-case scenarios, Chris walks them through the early phase first — explaining what it means to need help with one or two activities of daily living. By the time they reach the second phase, the conversation has shifted from resistance to action.

"After you've gone through two of them, they say, OK, fine. How much do you want to budget?"

Letting the Data Be the Expert

As a fee-only advisor, Chris can't lean on product incentives to drive client decisions. The plan has to speak for itself. Waterlily changes the dynamic by making the data — not the advisor — the authority in the room.

"The software serves as the expert. It's a little bit like when you have an expert in something else, whatever that is, say taxes or medicine. And you tell them, 'but the expert said so.' And they say, OK."

How He Operationalized It

Chris didn't build an elaborate system. He embedded Waterlily into the process he already had:

1. Sends the Waterlily questionnaire during every initial data collection meeting — it's part of the standard onboarding, not an optional step

2. Clients complete the intake on their own time — no advisor hand-holding required

3. Reviews the personalized projections in the next meeting — probability, duration, cost in present and future dollars

4. Walks clients through the three-phase care structure — early, mid, late — which moves the conversation from abstract to actionable

5. Uses the intake form as a prospecting tool — sends it to potential clients as a free planning resource to spark engagement before they even become clients

6. Averages 2+ new assessments per month — consistent, ongoing adoption across the book

Why This Matters for Fee-Only Advisors

If you earn no commissions and your value rests on the quality of your planning, every assumption in your financial plan is a liability.

The industry rule of thumb says two and a half years of care. Chris had a client come back at 97% probability. Those aren't the same plan — and the gap between them could cost a family hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Waterlily doesn't replace your judgment. It gives your judgment something to stand on.

"Waterlily is the one tool that I can use that gives me a good estimate of that."

Ready to close the biggest gap in your financial plans? Chris made Waterlily part of every client engagement — and now has data points that never existed before in his planning process.

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About Chris Chen, CFP®Insight Financial Strategists · Fee-only fiduciary · Specializes in wealth preservation, retirement income planning, and legacy planning · Waterlily user since early 2024.Learn more about Chris and his practice →