Partners Advantage Perspectives: How Our Organization is Preparing for the DOL Fiduciary Rule

By: James Wong, President
Partners Advantage Insurance Services, LLC

As it pertains to annuity business, it appears to us that life insurance only licensed agents will likely need to have one key IMO relationship. At Partners Advantage, we will likely have more select and deeper relationships with financial professionals and agencies due to the heightened risks all the way through the distribution chain. The fact that we already have well-trained compliance/suitability structure in place and a general counsel on our senior management team will be a benefit. We plan to increase staffing in this area  to adhere to regulations and support our distribution network. We anticipate IMOs will need to be structured more like a broker-dealer in the future, having additional reviews, checkpoints and monitoring (while continuing to offer professional development, marketing support and sales training).

We are having many conversations with our key carriers and they are looking to provide enhanced solutions within their core distribution. Having equity ownership in an RIA over many years has been beneficial for our organization and it may also be a part of the solution as we move forward.

Life insurance has been and will continue to be a key part of our business moving forward. We see the protection story becoming even more relevant in the future. Our structure and large staff enables us to also help other organizations expand and diversify their offerings through life insurance. Our track record of providing knowledgeable in-house underwriting and advanced markets experience will be the focal point. In a world of compressed margins and more oversight, we hope to capitalize on technology to help agencies and agents streamline the process and create a better customer buying experience.

We look forward to continuing to grow our business through our support of independent insurance professionals and agencies such that together we can meet the needs within our industry.



For financial professional use only.  Not for use with the public.

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What Robo-Advisors CanNOT Do That You Can; An Introduction to Behavioral Finance

Whether we are talking about life insurance sales, annuity sales or investment sales, one thing is undisputable, MONEY IS EMOTIONAL. Learn how to separate yourself and your practice from the "Robo-Advisors" by understanding and implementing behavioral finance. After all, Behavioral Finance and Speaking Your Clients' Financial Language can become one of the main determinants in your clients' success in their retirement planning process.

BONUS: We will also provide insights on how you can

Better understand the Allianz annuity
story by explaining the features of both the preferred and standard portfolio: Income Now. Income Later. Income Never.

Join Us on June 22

11 AM PDT, 12 PM MDT, 1 PM CDT, 2 PM EDT

Register HERE

Nationally recognized indexed product educator Charlie Gipple, CLU, ChFC will provide insights on how you can help your clients better understand how fixed annuities might work within their overall retirement income roadmap.

Questions?

Contact the Partners Advantage Annuity Advantage Team at

888-251-5525, Ext. 709

For financial professional use only - not for use with the public.

Product and feature availability may vary by state and broker/dealer.

The calculator is designed to highlight the income feature only. Keep in mind that FIAs are designed to meet your clients' long-term needs for retirement income. They provide many benefits for your clients, including principal protection, the potential for tax-deferred growth, and a death benefit for beneficiaries. Always consider each of the features available and how they work when considering if a product is appropriate for your client's needs.

Guarantees are backed by the financial strength and claims-paying ability of Allianz Life Insurance Company of North America.

Products are issued by:

 Allianz Life Insurance Company of North America

 5701 Golden Hills Drive, Minneapolis, MN 55416-1297

CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: The information in this email may be confidential and may be legally privileged. It is intended only for the use of the individual(s) named above. If you are the intended recipient, be aware that your use of any confidential or personal information may be restricted by state and federal privacy laws. If you, the reader of this message, are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that you should not further disseminate, distribute, or forward this email. If you have received this email in error, please notify the sender and delete the message. Thank you. 

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Post DOL Fiduciary Standard, Robo-Advisors Versus Real Advisors

By: Charlie Gipple, CLU,^® ChFC^® - Senior VP of Sales & Marketing, Partners Advantage

This is an excerpt to the full whitepaper by Charlie Gipple: "What Robo-Advisors CanNOT Do That You Can An Introduction to Behavioral Finance"

Whether we are talking about life insurance sales, annuity sales or investment sales, one thing is undisputable, MONEY IS EMOTIONAL. I believe financial professionals can never be replaced, because “robo-advisors” cannot adequately help manage the clients’ emotions and behaviors! Here's some insights into why.

Traditional Finance is what we have been taught. Traditional Finance would lead one to believe that helping our clients is more of a science than an art. This is the mathematically and scientifically fun stuff you read in the textbooks, such as efficient market hypothesis, correlation coefficients, charts, graphs, standard deviations, alpha, beta, and of course, the big one, Modern Portfolio Theory.

The Emotional Tail Wags the Rational Dog

Traditional Finance is the thought that what we doing financial services is more of a science than an art. I am a fan of “Traditional Finance,” and I have studied it a lot as I have a finance degree, two designations and four securities licenses. What does all of that mean, however? It means absolutely nothing, unless I can also help my clients with their behavior as well. Nothing else matters if investors’ behavior gets the best of them.

Furthermore, at the level of your client, these errors in their minds, in turn, can harm the success of a retirement and/or insurance portfolio. In other words, you as an agent/advisor can lay out a perfectly sound mathematical and scientific argument for your clients to either take action (buy insurance, for example) or not take action (buy and hold), but, if they have a “bias” in their mind that completely cancels out your rational argument, you are spitting in the wind.

In a world where supply and demand drives the price of multiple types of traded instruments up or down, when investors commit errors in thinking/judgment, the prices on these “traded instruments” tend to be different than what they would have been in an error-free environment. This is because the decisions of investors, whether rational or not, are what drive the prices of “investments” up and down. Bubbles and discounts do happen and have happened. The “rational models” have failed.

Therefore, you have this proliferation of behavioral finance. This is “the study of how finance is affected

by psychology. It attempts to understand a and explain how human emotions influence investors in their decision-making process.”

Now, why is behavioral finance a “new thing”? Why has it only been around for a couple of decades? Why have many agents never heard of behavioral finance? If it is so important now, then how have we lived without it for all this time? In other words, what is the paradigm shift that has taken place where behavioral finance should now be introduced into your practice when it was never a thought in previous years?

Find out more in the full, 14-page whitepaper by Charlie Gipple: "What Robo-Advisors CanNOT Do That You Can An Introduction to Behavioral Finance" Fill out the form below to request the full whitepaper or call Partners Advantage direct at 888-251-5525, Ext. 700.

Fill out my online form.

For financial professional use only. Not for use with consumers.

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