2015 Advanced Sales Forum

Michael Bitton, CFP, CLU, RICP, MSFS

Regional Director, Advanced Sales Center, MetLife

Coronado CD

Eric Mills, J.D., LL.M., CLU

Vice President, Pacific Life Insurance Company

Josh Winslow, J.D.

Assitant Vice President and Associate Counsel, Advanced Markets & Underwriting, John Hancock

Claire Durand, CFP, CLU, ChFC

Assistant Vice President, Advanced Marketing, Transamerica

The Advanced Life Insurance Sales professional must constantly keep up with the changing sales environment. In addition to being well-versed in traditional strategies, it is important to be on top of new and sometimes aggressive case designs. Understanding these strategies and evaluating cases with financial underwriting and product design can present both challenges and concerns. Eric Mills and Josh Winslow will dive into current strategies and the expanding role of the Advanced Sales professional.

Coronado CD

Chris Morton

Executive Vice President, Government Affairs & Business Strategy, Association for Advanced Life Underwriting

What is likely to happen in Washington that will impact your business? Attend this informative update on legislative and regulatory issues that affect you, the life insurance and broader financial services community.

Coronado CD

This session will be a panel discussion of current hot topics for annuities. Our panel of experts will range from current events such as DOL fiduciary rules, QLACs, post-death 1035 exchanges to annuities in trusts, and other topics that challenge annuity professionals.

Coronado CD

Discussing long-term care with clients can be difficult. Many clients associate the term “long-term care” with “nursing homes.” This association can cause the clients to shut down the LTC conversation. To help clients, detailed information is needed to help determine the need and plan an appropriate solution. Long-term care and chronic illness insurance and riders can be part of an appropriate solution. While most LTC and Chronic Illness riders have some similarities, there are some features that differentiate them as well. It is important to understand the differentiators as they can be crucial in helping a client make the right product decision for their particular situation. Join us to consider the development and changes with insured long term health care solutions.

Coronado B

This workshop will focus on today’s “pension-less” retirement income environment — the risks and various strategies used — and how different annuity products can be incorporated into the different client profiles your advisors may run into. A main focal point will include a number of case studies that show, generally, how each annuity product (e.g., DIA, SPIA, Fixed Indexed w/GMWB) may offer a solution to a client’s varying goals/needs.

Coronado CD

Relationships and trust are important elements in helping people plan for their future. This session will discuss how technology and tradition are used to persuade people to take action.

Coronado B

Patrick J. Dickey

Managing Partner, Tier One Insurance Services Inc.

Manuel E. “Manny” Martinez, ChFC

Martinez and Winter

Is your Advanced Sales Team doing a good job? How do you know? Is the pursuit of activity metrics of the number of interactions or calls between advanced sales associates and field sales associates informative? To what extent can premium — proposed or actually paid — validate the value of investing in an advanced sales team? Or is agent satisfaction as the advanced sales team’s primary “customer” the ultimate metric? Share insights with three highly successful life insurance professionals who describe their expectations, successes, and challenges in collaborating with Advanced Sales Teams in crafting client solutions leading to new sales as well as servicing the changing needs of existing policyholders.

Coronado CD

Lawrence Brody, J.D., LL.M.

Partner, Bryan Cave LLP

Thomas F. Commito, J.D., LL.M., CLU, ChFC, AEP

Director, Sales Concepts, Lincoln Financial Distributors

Lisa Harmon Powell, J.D., CLU, ChFC, LLIF
Moderator

Vice President, Advanced Markets, Guardian Life Insurance Company

Larry Brody and Tom Commito give us their perspective on the year’s cases, rulings, and other current events that affect how we work with our clients. This lively session is a perennial favorite and you are certain to leave this session better informed for the year ahead.

Coronado CD

Social Security benefits play a vital role in retirement income plans. Though an estimated 10,000 retirees become eligible for Social Security every day, many are unaware of the different types of benefits and collection strategies available. Use this seminar to help you maximize benefits and gain confidence in approaching your clients retirement.

Coronado B

This presentation focuses on the most effective sales strategies for the growing pass-through business entity market. The concepts explored are tailored towards the business, retirement, and estate planning needs of the modern business owner. Techniques that are unique to the insurance marketplace are explained, and applied in practical case scenarios. This is a must-see presentation for all eager to excel in the pass-through business entity market.

Coronado CD

Financial underwriting is an integral part of risk assessment in insurance. The development of money laundering and financial criminality has served to emphasize its importance. Financial Underwriting is the process of evaluating the economic need for insurance. In this workshop we will examine trending issues, common pitfalls, and practical underwriting solutions. Topics will include issues related to business owners, how to treat passive income, and estate planning issues.

Coronado CD

Join us as we explore how to bring Advanced Concepts and case studies to life by leveraging thought leadership content in the social media space. We’ll start by covering the latest marketing technology trends to promote your brand (or your advisor’s brand) and to position yourself as a thought leader in the advanced sales space. We’ll cover best practices for creating and sharing content intended to disturb and ask meaningful questions that will inspire your markets to take action.

Coronado B

Steven J. Oshins, Esq., AEP (Distinguished), J.D.

Attorney, Oshins & Associates, LLC

Historically, there was almost nothing that could be done to change, fix, or enhance an existing irrevocable trust. However, there are 22 jurisdictions that now allow a trustee to decant an irrevocable trust by distributing the trust assets to a new irrevocable trust with more desirable provisions. The audience will leave this presentation with a new tool to attract and help clients. The presenter will provide some life insurance sales ideas during the session.

Coronado CD

When properly structured, the general income tax rules of life insurance and annuity taxation are well known. But there are many exceptions that can subject the death benefit and withdrawals to income tax, resulting in a nasty surprise for the client and the producer. This workshop will examine the income and transfer tax consequences of some of these traps and discuss how to properly structure transactions to avoid adverse tax results.

Coronado CD

The current high Federal Estate Tax exemption and the income tax increases enacted in 2013 combine to drastically alter the dynamics in planning for wealthy clients. This session will provide general guidance to advisors and planners in an attempt to make sense of a vastly different planning world where the focus for the vast majority of taxpayers will no longer be one of minimizing death taxes and creating liquidity to pay estate taxes. Instead, the conversation is now about minimizing income taxes and state death taxes and meeting non-tax concerns such as asset protection, retirement planning, business continuation, estate equalization, and survivor income.

Coronado B

Michael Bitton, CFP, CLU, RICP, MSFS

Regional Director, Advanced Sales Center, MetLife

Michael Finke, Ph.D., CFP

Professor and Director of Retirement Planning and Living, Department of Personal Financial Planning at Texas Tech University

More than two million American households have more than $500,000 saved for retirement. While they have been diligent savers, turning this money into an income in retirement can be a challenge when investment returns and longevity are unknown. This session will begin with a review of the tradeoffs of a variety of retirement income strategies as well as practical applications of how various investment and insurance products can reduce their risk and affect optimal investment portfolios.

Coronado CD

Welcome to the new, much more complex world of estate planning. There are many more things to consider when putting together your client’s estate plan. However, with the recent changes in tax laws, estate planning is becoming more about income tax planning than about estate tax planning. This new world is a significant paradigm shift for estate planning. This session will cover: 

• Avoiding the fiscal cliff by seeking tax alpha in higher tax environment 
• The new paradigm of estate planning — keeping assets in the estate 
• Where does life insurance fit in this new world of estate planning?

Coronado CD

An IRA, or IRA rollover, is often the most significant asset comprising a “moderate” size estate, and represents a growing percentage of many estates. An effective strategy for this asset can be the centerpiece of an estate plan — particularly in the post ATRA tax environment. We’ll discuss important issues and considerations pertaining to estate and distribution planning for IRAs, from the perspectives of the IRA owner and beneficiaries, and feature tax efficient solutions which integrate the roles of permanent life insurance.

Coronado B

Robert Keebler, CPA/PFS, MST, AEP (Distinguished), CGMA

Partner, Keebler & Associates, LLP

These tools can be income tax efficient solutions to accomplish charitable, financial, and estate planning goals. They can also torpedo the best plan when not properly designed or administered. During this presentation we will review these strategies and identify situations in which each is effective.

Coronado CD

Stephan Mitchell

Director, Product Marketing, Pacific Life Insurance Company

Bobby Samuelson

Vice President, Life Product Development , MetLife

Bill Bell, J.D.

Assistant Vice President, Advanced Designs Unit, Pacific Life Insurance Company

Indexed Universal Life (IUL) is a product that has grown dramatically in both acceptance and sales results in recent years. One question that has always existed for anybody that sells IUL is, “What is the proper illustrated rate for an IUL product?” This year, the NAIC Life Actuarial Task Force has set forth guidelines for how the product will be illustrated starting potentially as early as next year. In this session, Bobby Samuelson and Stephan Mitchell, two of the industry’s foremost experts on IUL, will discuss how these guidelines will affect IUL as a product and how it will change how the product will be utilized in advanced planning concepts.

Coronado CD