Late last week, the SEC announced its Examination Priorities for 2013, which provides some guidance on what the SEC views as the greatest issues for concern and focus, especially amongst its Investment Adviser-Investment Company (IA-IC) program that is responsible for examining nearly 11,000 Registered Investment Advisers (RIAs) along with 800 Registered Investment Companies (RICs, e.g., mutual funds). In addition to a usual array of focus areas, from monitoring the safety of assets, conflicts of interest, and marketing (especially regarding performance marketing), this year's announcement was notable in one other regard: the SEC specifically cited dually registered IA/BD advisors (i.e., "hybrid" advisors) as a new and emerging risk area, especially regarding how advisors make a determination of whether to direct a particular client to the brokerage account versus an investment advisory account.Read More...
A common challenge in financial planning is getting clients to actually implement the recommendations they've been given to help themselves progress towards their financial planning goals. While in theory, rational human beings should easily be able to take the necessary steps to improve their situation - especially once an expert has provided a list of recommendations and required action items to do so - the reality is that we're far less rational in practice. External influences that "shouldn't" be relevant can often impact our decisions and actions anyway, and in turn this means it's possible to influence decisions, or "nudge" people in certain directions, by paying attention to how the choices are presented.
This concept of "choice architecture" - acknowledging that the way choices are presented can influence their outcomes - is relevant not only for those making public policy decisions, but also anyone who is trying to help people make positive behavior changes... such as financial planners. Whether it's helping clients to change their own behaviors, to implement your financial planning recommendations, or even to help them determine whether to hire you in the first place, it may be time to pay a lot more attention to how those decisions are delivered to clients in the first place.
Enjoy the current installment of "weekend reading for financial planners" - this week's issue starts off with a great article for newer advisors (although experienced practitioners will it relevant as well!), providing guidance on how to cultivate new relationships with centers of influence.
From there, we look at a number of practice management articles, including one looking at the costs and challenges of starting up an independent advisory firm, another that includes an interesting discussion of whether the new training programs being rolled out by large firms will help to bring in the next generation of advisors or is more like rearranging deck chairs on a sinking wirehouse Titanic, a third providing a fantastic summary of the various rebalancing software platforms discussed at the Technology Tools for Today (T3) conference, and the last an interview with technology consultant Bill Winterberg.
We also have a few more technical articles on advanced financial planning issues, including one from Jon Guyton on how to structure client retirement accounts to help them manage their own discretionary expenses (so the planner isn't stuck in the position of parenting client spending), another from Wade Pfau looking at how to craft an "efficient frontier" of retirement income products, a discussion of a recent tax court case the IRS lost that may lead to a significant boost in deferred private annuity estate planning strategies, and a look at how managing online accounts (or just trying to access them!) after death can lead to a lot of new world estate planning problems.
We wrap up with three very interesting articles: the first takes a deep look at the history of hyperinflations for the past century and how the government just printing money alone does not lead to an inflationary spiral; the second takes a look at how to rebuild consumer trust in financial services globally, making the notable point that just increasing disclosures may provide more/better information to consumers but may also be providing them more reasons not to trust; and the last providing a poignant reminder for all planners that being a good advisor also means living your own advice, which means make sure your own financial house is in order and that you're fitting your business into your life, not the other way around. Enjoy the reading!
As the long-term care insurance industry continues its efforts to restore stability and regain profitability, the latest shoe is about to drop: a new gender-based pricing structure that will mean men and women pay different premiums based on their gender. The first company to venture down the path is the market leader Genworth, which is anticipated to begin receiving approvals to issue new policies with gender-distinct costs as soon as April; once the changes take effect, it's likely that most other major LTC insurance companies will follow suit as well, and the new cost structure may be an industry standard by the end of the year. The primary impact of the cost change will be women who apply for a policy as an individual; premiums are anticipated to be as much as 20% to 40% higher than for men when purchasing a comparable policy at a comparable age.
In the near term, this provides a unique opportunity for those considering a new LTC policy to buy one before the rate increase takes effect. Once the new pricing is in place, though, the only options may be to adjust the selected benefits to try to get premiums down to an affordable point, consider a hybrid LTC policy as an alternative (although such policies have challenges of their own!), or wait to see if the latest commission on LTC (required as a part of the fiscal cliff legislation) can come up with a new national solution to the country's LTC woes. The upshot of the new gender-based pricing changes is that it may ultimately make LTC premiums more stable; accurate pricing reduces the risk of future premium increases for in-force policies. On the other hand, this also means the pressure is on to buy coverage sooner rather than later, as the cost for new policies continues to rise even faster than the increases for existing ones!
While the focus of this blog is typically on "the written word" and long articles, I thought you might be interested in some recent material I've recorded, including a 5-minute video for Investment News at the Technology Tools for Today (T3) conference about best practices in social media for advisors, and a 15-minute radio show recording about financial planning industry trends.
On a lighter note, there's also a very entertaining video from last week's Saturday Night Live, showing the ultimate in niche financial planning: Papal Securities, specializing in retirement advice for Popes!
The 2013 Technology Tools for Today (T3) conference ran last week from February 11th to 13th in Miami, Florida. Entering its 8th year, the event is hosted by financial advisor technology consultants Joel Bruckenstein and David Drucker, and continues to grow, as this year's conference included more than 600 total attendees and over 75 companies (generally hand picked by Bruckenstein and Drucker) that provide technology-related solutions for advisors - which means it will by far be the largest advisor-centric technology conference of the year. And notwithstanding how the event has grown, the reality is that the conference still has ample room to expand further, given that several problem areas for advisors still had relatively few solutions present. In fact, it was somewhat ironic that the conference had a thriving Twitter hashtag but only one provider of social media archiving tools!
In looking amongst the vendors and solutions available at the conference, several clear themes emerged, including an ongoing shift to web-based "cloud" solutions, the rising trend of software integration around CRM as the hub, and the availability of software on mobile devices. But perhaps one of the most striking themes heard from advisors in the hallways at this year's conference is simply that the available technology solutions have become so numerous, now one of the greatest challenges is just choosing amongst them all!
To say the least, the T3 conference is now a permanent "fixture" of the financial advisor conference space, and the growth of the event suggests the future still looks bright both for the conference itself, and the growth of technology solutions for advisors!
