The Life Insurance-Other Financial Services Sectors Communications Gap

March 5, 2019 by Mark Whitelaw

A recent ThinkAdvisor Life/Health article raised this question: Can members of the life insurance community explain themselves to other players in the financial services sector?

Here’s my response, with my comments focused on how members of the life insurance community can explain themselves.

Whether life insurance community members have the ability to explain themselves to counterparts in other financial services sectors is a multi-faceted topic.

• Can all agents serve in this role? No. Only those that are FINRA registered representatives have access to the full array of products and can use financial services consistent language.
• Can hypothetical illustrations of insurance products be prepared consistent with financial services alternatives? Variable and fixed indexed annuity and life insurance products can, fixed insurance not linked to the market can’t.
• Can a FINRA registered rep provide hypothetical illustration of all consumer alternatives? That’s a broker-dealer question.
• Can hypothetical illustrations of a consumers planning alternatives be prepared in a manner consistent with both FINRA and the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) using the consumers’ financial planning assumptions? Yes.

Click HERE to read the full story via ThinkAdvisor.

Originally Posted at ThinkAdvisor on February 27, 2019 by Mark Whitelaw.