2019 Advanced Sales Forum

With the passage of the Tax Cuts and Job Act in 2017 behind us, along with the 2018 mid-term elections, which changed the political calculus in DC, what is ahead for the next two years for our industry?   How might the actions and agenda in Washington impact your business? Attend this informative discussion on the intersection of politics and policy, delving into the tax and regulatory challenges and opportunities coming our way.  Always informative, insightful, and well-received, this session is not to be missed!

Sponsored by Pacific Western Bank

What happens to your emails, passwords, photos, and websites when you pass away? Honestly, it really depends on your level of planning. Most states now require you to do affirmative planning in order to pass on these assets to your heirs or to allow others to access the information. Failure to do such planning could leave your assets tied up forever in the cloud, unavailable to business partners or loved ones, causing tremendous hardship and financial damages.

Sponsored by Ashar Group

Retirement income planning can be like hitting a moving target in the wind. You need a goal, a path and a process for getting there. But many people don’t have any plan in place.  One issue is behavioral biases that hold clients back from better planning.  We will look at the three main philosophies of income planning, bucketing, flooring, and systematic withdrawal and how they can help achieve a more secure outcome for clients by dealing directly with behavioral biases like narrow framing and risk aversion. 

With business income now being taxed at a lower rate than personal income, this makes employer sponsored split-dollar loans more attractive.  For example, owners of C-Corporations can elect to retain funds in the corporation, have them taxed at 21%, and then loan them out, rather than bonusing them out and paying taxes at higher individual tax rates.  This workshop will explore how:

• To properly structure split dollar loans so that the insured can access the cash value in excess of the loan balance as a source of tax-free supplemental retirement income.
• The employer can achieve cost recovery by being repaid from the death proceeds.

Sponsored by BEI

This workshop is the sequel to the panelists’ 2017 discussion of planning for unusual assets, including digital property, pets, wine collections, fine art, firearms, intellectual property, and similar unusual planning needs. The presenters will explore how life insurance has been misused or abused in inappropriate or aggressive case designs. Some cases reflect poor design or lack of planning, while others point to illicit techniques—the murky world of fraudsters, offshore scams, and the like.  The speakers intend to provide the primary red flags for these “bleeding edge case” scenarios, and to suggest planning alternatives that would be acceptable in the underwriting process.

This workshop will:

• Describe the roles and multiple opportunities of insurance and financial advisors in the design and implementation of an exit plan for business owners.
• Explain how exit planning—
  • Uncoversmore than a dozen life insurance and investment advisory solutions for the owner and business—not counting buy-sell funding.
  • Ensures that the life insurance professional has a seat at the head of the exit planning table

• Provides a new perspective on buy-sell agreements and funding

This presentation will address the latest developments on fiduciary standards of conduct for financial professionals promulgated or under consideration by federal and state regulatory agencies.   We will delve into the standards of conduct and the best interest duties the regulatory agencies have developed and their potential impact to our industry, as well as discuss potential regulatory changes on the horizon.    

During the first 30 minutes learn what Advanced Sales attorneys and life insurance advisors need to know about how the Section 199A deduction for pass-through business entities affects choice of business entity.  Learn what is most important about Section 199A and how explain it to business owner clients in easy to understand terms.  Learn how Section 199A applies to life insurance agents and financial advisors and their practices, including how it applies to insurance and investment revenue streams in their practices.  This interactive session will also uncover the life insurance opportunities provided by Section 199A.

During the second half of this session Bob will review the new law governing retirement plans. The house of representatives passed legislation May 2019 that makes it easier to save for retirement. Learn about new ages for making IRA contributions and for taking RMDs, and changes to stretch IRA planning and more.

Sponsored by Pentera

This panel discussion will provide effective, proven advanced sales ideas to help generate sustainable retirement income using annuities.  Topics of discussion will also include creating multi-generational wealth, the future use of annuities in employer sponsored retirement plans and how annuities are used in trust and estate planning scenarios.

Come hear a panel of Underwriting Department leaders from three major carriers tell us what they wish every member of Advanced Sales knew about partnering with Underwriters in this “not to miss” workshop.  Learn how to “think like an Underwriter” and what you can do to streamline the Underwriting process.

Learn the practical aspects of split dollar administration, for old style plans, including how section 409A and Notice 2007-34 apply to employment-related split dollar, and how taxation of equity works for pre-2005 and post-2005 premiums paid under those plans. Also, learn how to plan and administer post-final Regulation loan regime plans. Also covered: estate planning updates on developments related to grantor trust income taxation, non-grantor trust income taxation, and state income taxation of trusts. Learn about ING trusts, asset swaps, and IRC section 67(e) for calculating AGI for a trust.

Whether it is attracting them to be an advisor or client, women today provide a huge opportunity for insurers, yet there is a struggle to understand how to reach them and motivate them to act. Penn Mutual is pursuing that opportunity by building a consumer facing brand, myWorth, which provides education, tools, and resources for women. In this session, you will discover the pitfalls and keys to success in building an internal innovation lab to drive transformation and create sustainable sources of growth within a 171 year old insurance company.

Do you want to know what other Advanced Sales departments are doing to ensure that their team is considered indispensable to the future success of their company? Can you imagine your senior leadership knowing that without you and your team, they would not have the same level of success?  Come to this workshop prepared to share your successes and challenges.  You will learn ways to prove the value of your team, using metrics and technology; how to effectively message your mission statement and align that with the branding of your team and how to communicate that effectively across your organization. Come to engage in a lively discussion of how we can adapt to serve the agents of the future and more.

While technology continues to transform overall society, life insurance companies have generally been slow to adopt cutting-edge computer technology into their operations.  This slowness affects advanced sales departments, which must often compete for dollars to fund technology initiatives.  Despite these challenges, advanced sales departments are using technology in new ways to deliver results.

This session will explore how advanced sales departments are currently leveraging technology to serve advisors and centers of influence. Moreover, the session will describe strategies to obtain dollars for technology projects.

As Advanced Sales specialists, you are often called upon to deliver “training” to your advisors, distribution partners, or co-workers.  How do you turn an event into a learning forum? How do you craft a session where learning will happen, vs. simply hearing good information that could be of value, if applied? Hear from one of the industry’s leaders in advisor and management learning & development and come away with techniques to increase your value and that of your department.

A successful advance sales department needs “good bones.” How does your company’s structure and practices compare to your peers? What services are you providing that give you a competitive advantage? What services can you add to be the company of choice for these sophisticated cases? How is your turnover? Are you providing the technology and training to keep your key staff? Attend this session to hear the results of our 2019 Advanced Sales Department Company Practices survey. And get the perspective from a company active in this market.

Mobile, custom, fast and easy. That's what it takes to meet the demands of today's digital consumer. That's why in this fast-moving talk, Dr. Debra Jasper, founder and CEO of Mindset Digital, will show us how to break through the noise and capture the attention of today’s hyper-distracted clients and colleagues. She’ll also cover not just what's now, but what's next -- including AI, charming chatbots, emotion analytics and more. 

As architects of the future, Advanced Sales has to weave its way through ever evolving tax law changes, imposed increased regulations and protect their company and clients from bold, unique concepts that could cause risk to all concerned.  In this session, you will hear how companies are designing ways for their producers and clients to be successful.