Shift Gears to Fee-Only Planning with Minimal Challenge
Share this
So you want to be an XYPN fee-only financial planner but you got your start in the commissioned world. Now you’re wondering how to get out from under (transfer) those insurance policies or annuities that you wrote in your former life. Depending on where you were, there are some different avenues.
Big Mutual
Many of these companies work under a “career agency” system. Generally, the agents will use their company exclusively when recommending policies, and over the years use for almost all their clients.
- If you want to leave, Big Mutual may be able to do a “blanket reassignment” – the simplest way – if the transfer is to another agent at the same agency. Let’s say while you were working in the Walla Walla Washington agency, you sat next to Fred and liked him. It may be a simple transfer of your existing policies to Fred to service those policies.
- If you want the policies you wrote to be serviced by another agent at a different agency, Big Mutual will likely require agent change letters from each client agreeing to the transfer to the new agent/agency. The new agent may have to be appointed with Big Mutual.
- If you can’t decide on a reassignment plan, when the agency terminates your contract, the clients would become orphans and are usually reassigned to another career agent.
So what you want to do may depend on two factors. First, if you are continuing a relationship with the clients. Secondly, just how many policies you have with Big Mutual.
Independent Life
Whether you recognize Snoopy, the humpback whale splashing out of the water, or remember to “get a piece of the Rock”, agents are independently licensed and are able to work with many companies.
From my research, blanket transfers are less likely to happen, so transferring policies would require a change of writing agent letter/form for each policy. Similar to #2 above.
If you terminate your contract with Independent Life, as the writing agent you are still vested in compensation, but would not have access to policy info or service the policy going forward.
So most of the time, only individual client letters are the option to change the writing agent.
There are many ways to skin a cat, and I’m a dog person, so we’re here to help!
About the Author: Mark is the president and CEO of Low Load Insurance Services, or LLIS. Low Load Insurance Services was founded to provide assistance to fee-only advisors with helping their clients with insurance transactions. You can learn more about LLIS here.
Share this
- Advisor Posts (433)
- Fee-only advisor (388)
- Advice (316)
- Business Development (245)
- Independent Financial Advisor (204)
- Growing Your Firm (160)
- Marketing (132)
- Financial Planning (104)
- What Would Arlene Say (WWAS) (81)
- Firm Ownership (78)
- Business Coach (77)
- Training (76)
- Compliance (71)
- Business (69)
- Building Your Firm (68)
- Financial Advisors (65)
- Online Marketing (61)
- Events (60)
- Starting a Firm (50)
- From XYPN Members (48)
- Technology (48)
- Launching a firm (45)
- Advisors (42)
- Entrepreneurship (39)
- Taxes (39)
- Staffing & HR (38)
- Networking & Community (33)
- Interviews and Case Studies (32)
- Investment Management (32)
- XYPN Invest (28)
- Tax Preparation (27)
- Business Owner (25)
- Social Responsibility (25)
- Sales (24)
- Small Business Owner (20)
- Industry Trends & Insights (19)
- From XYPN Invest (18)
- Financial Planners (17)
- Independent Financial Planner (17)
- XYPN (17)
- Leadership & Vision (16)
- XYPN News (16)
- Tech Stack (15)
- How to be a Financial Advisor (14)
- RIA (14)
- Investing (13)
- Media (13)
- NextGen (13)
- Press Mentions (13)
- Financial Education (12)
- Goals (12)
- RIA Owner (12)
- XYPN Membership (12)
- Assets Under Management (AUM) (11)
- First Year (11)
- Niche (11)
- SEC (10)
- Advisor Success (9)
- RIA Registration (9)
- Communication (8)
- Lessons (8)
- Study Group (8)
- Time Management (8)
- Virtual Advisor (8)
- Growth (7)
- Mental Health (7)
- Pricing Models (7)
- From Our Advisors (6)
- Independent RIA (6)
- Money Management (6)
- Motivation (6)
- Preparing to Launch (6)
- Processes (6)
- Risk and Investing (6)
- Automation (5)
- Behavioral Finance (5)
- Broker-Dealers (5)
- College Planning (5)
- Filing Status (5)
- How I Did It series (5)
- Investment Planner (5)
- Michael Kitces (5)
- Preparing to Launch (5)
- Retirement (5)
- S Corpration (5)
- Scaling (5)
- Support System (5)
- TAMP (5)
- Wealth (5)
- Year-End (5)
- Bear Market (4)
- CFP Certification (4)
- Outsourcing (4)
- Selling a Firm (4)
- Small Business (4)
- State Registration (4)
- Succession Plans (4)
- Benchmarking Study (3)
- Bookkeeping (3)
- Budgeting (3)
- ESG Investing (3)
- Emotional Decisions (3)
- Engagement (3)
- Fiduciary (3)
- Financial Life Planning (3)
- Getting Leads (3)
- IRA (3)
- Life planning (3)
- Lifestyle practice (3)
- Membership (3)
- Millennials (3)
- Monthly Retainer Model (3)
- Monthly Subscription Model (3)
- Partnership (3)
- Pricing (3)
- RIA Audit (3)
- Recordkeeping (3)
- Risk Assessment (3)
- Staying Relevant (3)
- Wellness (3)
- Work Life Balance (3)
- Advice-Only Planning (2)
- Building Your Firm (2)
- Career Changers (2)
- Charitable Donations (2)
- Community Property (2)
- Design (2)
- Differentiation (2)
- Exchange-Traded Funds (ETF) (2)
- FINRA (2)
- Finding Your Why (2)
- Graphic design (2)
- Growing Income (2)
- Health Care (2)
- Inflation (2)
- Key performance indicator (KPI) (2)
- Keynote (2)
- Negative Rates (2)
- Operations (2)
- Organization (2)
- Outsourced Asset Management (2)
- Outsourced Bookkeeping (2)
- Portfolio Management (2)
- Productivity (2)
- Psychology (2)
- Quickbooks (2)
- Recommended Reading (2)
- Recruiting (2)
- Registered Representative (2)
- Registration (2)
- Restricted Stock Units (RSU) (2)
- Start Ups (2)
- Stock Options (2)
- Team Communication (2)
- Virtual Assistant (2)
- Virtual Paraplanner (2)
- Accounting (1)
- Arlene Moss (1)
- Assistant (1)
- Bonds (1)
- Bull Market (1)
- Careers (1)
- Certified Public Accountant (CPA) (1)
- Childcare (1)
- Client Acquisition (1)
- Client Services (1)
- Common Financial Mistakes (1)
- Consulting (1)
- Consumerism (1)
- Credit (1)
- Custodians (1)
- Custody Rule (1)
- Data (1)
- Daycare (1)
- Definitions (1)
- Designations (1)
- Direct Indexing (1)
- Disasters (1)
- Earn More (1)
- Family (1)
- Fidelity (1)
- Finance (1)
- Financial Freedom (1)
- Financial Goals (1)
- Financial Life Management (1)
- Financial Success (1)
- Financial Wellness (1)
- Form 8606 (1)
- Form 8915-E (1)
- Grief (1)
- Guide (1)
- How to Budget (1)
- Impostor Syndrome (1)
- Interns (1)
- Investor Policy Statement (IPS) (1)
- Job burnout (1)
- Liquidating your business (1)
- Loans (1)
- Moving Forward (1)
- Part Time (1)
- Paying Yourself (1)
- Paystub (1)
- Perfectionism (1)
- Project Management (1)
- Projecting Returns (1)
- Purpose (1)
- Quarterly Estimated Payments (1)
- RIA Operations (1)
- Recession (1)
- Referrals (1)
- Regulations (1)
- Regulators (1)
- Reinvention (1)
- Relationships (1)
- Remote (1)
- Required Minimum Distributions (RMD) (1)
- Risk Management (1)
- Roth Conversations (1)
- Roth IRA (1)
- Sabbatical (1)
- Spending (1)
- Strategy (1)
- Systems (1)
- Target Audience (1)
- Teamwork (1)
- Terms (1)
- To-Do List (1)
- Traditional IRA (1)
- Transitions (1)
- Virtual (1)
- Vulnerability (1)
- XYPN Books (1)
Subscribe by email
You May Also Like
These Related Stories