American Institute Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) on Advanced Personal Financial Planning Conference Follow-Up

Thank you to all of those that visited THEInsuranceAdvisor.COM booth at the AICPA this past week. We were pleased to be a part of the conference and to be able to continue to share how THEInsuranceAdvisor.COM research can make a difference to your practice and in the life insurance portfolios of your clients. From those we talked with, there were two common themes that ran through most every discussion at this year’s AICPA conference. The first revolved around how tax planning over the next twelve months will likely achieve greater results than in any time in recent memory for three major reasons:

• Because many clients' assets are undervalued due to recent events in the financial markets, more assets can be transferred now with less transfer tax implications, and when the market recovers and asset values grow, all this growth will have been transferred free of transfer taxes.
• Because interest rates are low, arbitrage tools (like zeroed-out GRATs) can transfer an even greater amount of assets with little or no transfer tax implications.
• Most clients who have put off planning in recent years due to the uncertainty of the market are now more receptive to planning than in years past.

The second common theme was the financial regulations including Fiduciary Standard (as reported in the previous issue of the TIA E-News) revealed by recent legislation in Congress, reminding us all to do a better job of being client advocates. Of course, the first objective of many fiduciaries is to measure before you can manage. Then, the second objective is often to monitor your (client’s) life insurance portfolio.

In order to reassure your clients that they made the appropriate choice in life insurance products and/or reveal when there are opportunities for improvement, it is therefore important to inspect what you expect out of your client’s life insurance portfolios. Use the Confidential Policy Evaluator (CPE) to reveal what your clients are being charged for cost of insurance charges (COIs), fixed administration expenses (FAEs), cash-value-based “wrap fees” (e.g., M&Es) and premium loads, and what they are getting in performance of invested assets underlying policy cash values.

With CPE, you know how the current portfolio holding or newly proposed product measures up against the benchmarks for ALL products in its peer group, and why. It is an easy-to-use tool that can help reassure your clients of their financial decisions. Subscribe now and take advantage of the No-Risk trial subscription.

*Congratulations to THEInsuranceAdvisor.COM R/C Hummer winner, Jeffrey Chernitzer, CPA/PFS.