12/31/2008

A PERSONAL NOTE

Out of respect for your time in visiting this detailed blog here is a thumbnail of my motivation:

My professional training and experience is in structural engineering.
We fabricated and erected numerous highrise structural fameworks for general contractors and commercial developers. Structural steel requires concrete to be "wrapped" around it to be fireproof.

Upon the gradual economic move by the building industry away from the use of structural steel to concrete for fireproofing purposes (The Twin Towers in NYC collapsed on 9/11 because the intense heat from the airplane fuel weakened the structural steel frameworks to the point of collapse) I made a decision to apply the rigorous professional practice education, training, experience and discipline I applied for many years in the steel industry to the financial services industry.

My decision was based upon a simple premise:

The same mind that ensured structural safety for those individuals who occupied the buildings our steel structures supported could insure "structural" financial safety to support the lifetime accumulation of capital and income needs of individuals whose retirement was imminent.

The pre eminent demographic group who are now retiring in unprecedented numbers are the Boomer generation in Canada with 14,000,000 in Canada and 76,000,000 in the USA.

Over the last 30 years I have devoted my professional life successfully to assuring structural financial certainty to this financial objective.

During the last quarter of 2008 the seismic collapse of the US mortgage market and the global financial credit markets and the erosion that has taken place as a result in the securities and other financial markets have brought into unequivocal focus a clear personal understanding of men and women globally of the uncompromising need for "structural" financial instruments which put a "floor" below which market forces can not destroy capital assets necessary for lifetime income.

That has been and is our work and our passion.

We have been successful in our efforts.

Here is our value proposition to the 10,000,000 boomers entering retirement in Canada:

Age 60 is on your radar.

“Will you be O.K.?”

Are you fully prepared for the next 30 years?

Give us 5 minutes.

We’ll give you 30 years!

BEYOND RISK: "WILL YOU BE O.K.?"

Q: How do you assure the imminently burgeoning retirement needs of 90,000,000 unprepared, disinterested and impatient boomers in North America with only 10,000 professional financial advisors out of 275,000 in Canada designated dually as Certified Financial Planners (Wealth Accumulation) and Chartered Life Underwriters (Wealth Preservation/Retirement) and professionally available to offer their professional competence to the 10,000,000 boomers in Canada?

A: With an immediate change in the real time demand/delivery paradigm….through the use of a real time web based application that has global consumer financial access.


Beyond Risk
Through Digital Real Time Innovation
We Execute
"Will you be O.K.?"

THE BOOMER CASE FOR THE BANKS - WHY THE BANKS ARE POSITIONED TO BE THE "ADVISOR RESOURCE" OF CHOICE FOR 14,000,000 RETIRING BOOMERS IN CANADA


Here are the Boomer Stats
as at 12/2008
***
Primary Financial Advisor:
Advisor with Bank Branch/Trust Company 58%
Financial Planner/Financial Advisor 28%
Investment Advisor/Stockbroker 12%
Insurance Agent or Broker 2%
Source: Advisor's Edge Dec. 2008
***
Our focus is female Boomer Spouses
***
Our Solution
***
COMMUNITY WEB BASED REAL TIME DEMAND - BANKING INDUSTRY


· WEB BASED SIMPLIFIED NEEDS ANALYSIS (FNA) SOFTWARE and COLLABORATIVE COMMUNICATIONS APPLICATIONS ARE A KEY TO THE GROWTH OF THE CANADIAN BANKING INDUSTRY’S FOCUS ON GROWTH THROUGH A “charge to sell their products directly to consumers via phone, e-mail and “snail” mail.”

· The banks are determined to replace the life insurance industry’s natural market constituency. They have done it before. They took the RRSP market away from the life insurance industry’s absolute legislated control and the Canadian market for RRSP’s grew exponentially.
· The banks have a ubiquitous, dominant and natural Canadian market constituency. The life insurance industry does not.

· We can add our superior web based applications to the banking industry’s list of distribution channels

· This report focuses on the introduction of our applications in support of the banking industry’s drive to dominate the void left by the life industry’s abandonment of its exclusive career agency platform commencing in 1996 and with it now being substantially withdrawn from the key growth sector in the life insurance market, namely, the middle income market.

· In abandoning the career platform the life industry removed itself as the exclusive source of new recruits to the life sector. The banks have replaced this recruiting void as a key source of recruits through its life, mutual funds and securities divisions.

· They are poised to dominate the life sector.

· We can provide them with their “tipping point”.


GOING DIRECTLY TO THE CLIENT

Bank-owned life insurance companies are leading a charge to sell their products directly to consumers via phone, e-mail and “snail” mail.At first blush, it’s a trend that could worry and irritate advisors. But even some traditional insurers openly admit that it’s a distribution model with which advisors can co-exist — and they have found a way to keep advisors happy. The numbers are surprising. A Forrester Research Inc. report (PREEMINENT US RESEARCH GROUP) shows that while advisor-based life insurance sales are still by far the dominant channel, accounting for 59% of sales, 20% of Canadians applying for life insurance do so over the phone, 16% by mail and another 5% online. The Massachusetts-based researcher’s report, published this past November, is based on a 2006 survey of more than 6,000 Canadians.Defining exactly what products were sold is tough, but the report did find that about $3.5 billion, or less than 3% of total premiums sold in 2006, is defined as “creditor insurance” — the kind that banks can sell to protect their clients’ mortgages, lines of credit and credit card debt, for example. Byren Innes, senior vice president and a director of Toronto-based consultancy NewLink Group Inc. , says direct sales isn’t a core channel: “But it’s a growing channel. It’s meaningful, and the numbers add up.”Moreover, there is consensus in the Canadian life insurance industry that direct sales are an integral part of the industry’s growth outlook. Up for grabs is the middle-market Canadian who either has no insurance or is underinsured. The logic is that most traditional insurance advisors don’t serve the largest part of the population because they can’t make an easy living doing so. It’s much easier to focus on more affluent clients; even if there are far fewer of them, a sale or two of high-premium universal life beats a handful of accidental death and term-10 policies every time. “Our research suggests that 57% of middle-market Canadians don’t have an insurance agent,” says Gordon Henderson, president and CEO of Toronto-based BMO Life Insurance Co. “The stat that floors me is that 36% of households say that no one has ever approached them to buy individual insurance.”So, the Big Five banks and their life insurance subsidiaries have marched in. The Bank Act doesn’t allow them to comb client data to cross-sell life insurance policies such as term products, universal life or annuities. But regulations allow them to sell creditor insurance and, in some cases, accidental death policies.The policies that are sold directly may be relatively small, but this category of products represents the thin end of the wedge, so to speak. Once the bank-owned insurer sells an accidental death policy to a client, it can now sell the client its entire suite of products, because the client has become a client of the life insurance subsidiary. BMO Life, for one, has seen 30% annual growth in premium sales since it opened up shop in 2002, says Henderson. Its raft of products includes some simplified term products and critical illness insurance, which it introduced late in 2007. All of this is offered to consumers in an online environment in which an underwriting agent works in the background. “If you answer ‘yes’ to four questions, you’re covered for $100,000,” says Henderson of the CI product. BMO life will continue to invest in the online channel, aiming to maintain its 30% annual growth target via direct-mail campaigns, call centres and the Internet. “The market is just that huge,” Henderson says. “The key is to get to people and introduce your products in a market that isn’t being approached by the traditional agent force.”All of the banks’ life insurance units — none of which ranks in the top 10 insurers in Canada by assets — are in this online market, in which the focus is on simplified, easy-to-understand, relatively low-cost products to meet needs that clients can easily articulate.


Mark Cummings, managing director and head of domestic insurance at Scotia Life Insurance Co. in Toronto, says direct life insurance has become a growth platform for the parent bank, and Scotia Life is rapidly growing its customer base. It is among the leaders in the direct-sales business, along with Toronto-based TD Life Insurance Co. Scotia Life sells guaranteed issue life, hospital cash insurance, term life insurance and accidental death insurance.
· If we add an interactive web based training/communications application to the Needs Analysis software that we have developed the banking industry will be able to replace the career life insurance platform that began to collapse in 1996 and is essentially gone today. With the loss of the career system there is little recruiting of new agents to the life industry. The MGA platform does not recruit new agents and is now suffering from a lack of new blood.

· The banks are filling the recruiting void and are poised to dominate the middle market.

· They need our technology.

· We can now provide it.

· For the past 10 years the banking industry in Canada has been trying to offer life insurance products to the Canadian marketplace. The Federal legislation prohibits them from selling their products within bank branches.

· They are going to try again.

· If they could service the broad middle market which has no life agent via a simplified web based needs analysis software application by entering their personal data directly or with the help of a 1 800 CSR the banks could make the case to the Federal government that they are filling a vital life insurance void left by the traditional life insurance industry because the typical agent has moved away from the middle market into the affluent market because advisors cannot earn a living in the middle market and can do well financially in the the affluent market.

· This market situation is identical in the US.

RBC Life Insurance Co. of Mississauga, Ont., is the product of a handful of acquisitions made by its parent, RBC Financial Group, and its strategy very much reflects a multi-channel, multi-platform approach. “The industry has consolidated quite a bit over the past 10 years with all the M&A activity that has taken place,” says John Young, president and CEO of the carrier. “RBC Life is a part of that.”RBC Life includes a number of distribution platforms. It has a 300-member career sales force, a managing general agency business, national accounts, direct sales, near-branches and strategic alliances. It counts up to 17,000 wholesale advisors who have done business through its MGA. “The vast majority of all life insurance and wealth [product sales] comes through the MGA channel, so it’s a very important channel for us, and one in which we’re very active,” says Neil Paton, vice president of insurance sales development at RBC Life. At least a third of its living-benefits sales arrive via the MGA channel as well.RBC Life’s national accounts include advisors at sister firm RBC Dominion Securities Inc. and other traditional investment dealers and mutual fund dealers across the country. The company has also developed a strong market among small insurance brokerage outfits, and some of the larger, multiple-advisor producers. “We have a lot of history there, especially in the living-benefits marketplace,” says Paton. It doesn’t end there. RBC has a long-standing corporate partnership with State Farm Group of Cos. , based in Illinois. RBC provides individual disability insurance to the Canadian unit, Aurora, Ont.-based State Farm Insurance. It also offers the same product through Sun Life Financial Inc. “Where other entities don’t have the skill or expertise that we do, we form strategic alliances with them,” says Paton. “We have a number of relationships like that.”Among those relationships, RBC provides an exclusive universal life product to Toronto-based PPI Financial Group, the national managing general agent and brokerage that has carved out a niche in the high net-worth market.

RBC Life’s direct sales channel is also growing quickly with the help of third-party agency, the Edge Benefits Inc. , based in Newmarket, Ont., through which it sells what it calls “simplified” life insurance. The Edge provides product administration and markets disability insurance mostly to small business owners who do not have the finances to fund a full employee benefits program. “We have a method in which we insure [the policyholder’s] gross revenue, as opposed to net income, which is a problem for self-employed people,” says Paton. “So, we’ve had quite a bit of success there over the past five or six years.”Most recently, RBC Life launched simplified critical illness insurance for coverage of cancer, heart attack and stroke, with benefits up to $75,000. It also announced new renewable rates for its term 10 and 20 products. Not to be forgotten, the company operates a 300-advisor career sales force as a national entity separate from other channels. Last year, it equipped this sales force with new laptops that were loaded with illustrations software. The advisors, spread among 19 branches across the country, concentrate mostly on life insurance sales, with about 10% to 15% of their sales in living benefits. Full financial planning is not yet part of the equation for the advisors, says Paton, and, as such, new recruits are expected to meet minimum regulatory licensing requirements — although the certified life underwriting designation is encouraged, says Young.

CAREER AGENTS

Paton notes the career channel tends to attract recruits who appreciate the value of the RBC brand, the training program and the breadth of the product offering. “We have a bank act that prevents us from certain activity,” he says. “But there’s a lot of things we can do to promote awareness of insurance and provide general information to those customers, which can drive more opportunities to our organization.” Branch managers are under orders to hire, train and develop growth organically, one rep at a time. “That means bringing in young talent,” Young adds, referring to the aging insurance advisor. Rounding out the distribution are the so-called “near-branch” outlets that RBC Life has bundled together on street corners and in strip malls with Royal Bank of Canada branches. These tend to sell mostly property and casualty insurance, product categories that are not under CEO Young’s watch. But, he says, the outlets are increasingly selling the simplified life insurance and living benefits solutions as well. “The growth we see in these channels is high from a percentage stand point,” he says. “But it may be because the base is rather smaller.” This smorgasbord of distribution channels hasn’t necessarily satisfied RBC Life. If the right opportunities came along, it could still open up more channels with other acquisitions. “We think of ourselves as a multi-channel organization,” Young says. “And we’re trying to reach a broad swath of clients. To do that we know we have to run effectively multiple distribution channels.

”SEG FUND OFFERING

On the product side, the company has jumped into other waters. In November 2006, it launched 12 segregated funds, or RBC Guaranteed Investment Funds, with underlying RBC Asset Management Inc. funds, as well as four model portfolios to suit different investor profiles. Sales “met expectations,” says Young, and the company added two new funds to its lineup in 2007. “We wanted that seg funds offering, because it is a key product for asset-accumulation solutions but for income-distributions solutions, as well,” adds Young. “Or, for mitigating the risks of investment after folks retire because of the guarantees that seg funds offer.”He notes that RBC is watching the guaranteed minimum withdrawal benefit market closely, but it’s not about to make any product announcements of its own.Inside the RBC Financial Group, RBC Life is well supported, adds Young: “Royal Bank recognizes the role that improving insurance results can play in differentiating us, and moving us away from other financial services institutions.” RBC Life’s executives see an opportunity to service and sell to a large group of Canadians whose needs are not being met by the marketplace. They say the overall RBC Financial Group was created to develop wealth-management strategies among the traditional banking, brokerage and insurance silos as much as is possible under current regulations. “It’s in its infancy, but it’s still a mammoth opportunity to serve the Canadian marketplace,” says Paton. “We have robust expectations about the future potential,” adds Young, “and growth that can come out of this.”


Mississauga, Ont.-based RBC Life Insurance Co. is relatively new to the direct-marketing channel, but its president and CEO, John Young, confirms that this is an important channel for the company. “There’s a segment of the client market that prefers this channel,” he says.
So, where are the traditional insurers? They’re selling directly, to some extent, but there’s no question that traditional carriers are conflicted about the channel. And they don’t want to give the wrong impression to advisors. “Our company position is around financial advice and life-time financial security,” says Ray Kong, vice president of marketing of individual insurance and investments at Sun Life Financial Inc. in Waterloo, Ont.

· “But we also recognize that there is a significant part of the population that is unwilling or hesitant to engage with an advisor.”Sun Life wrapped up a successful accidental death insurance direct-mail sales campaign in the fourth quarter of 2007;
· Its consumer response rate was more than 20%. “In the direct-marketing world,” Kong says, “that’s unheard of.”The policies are relatively small and they added up to fewer than 4,000 in total, but campaigns such as this show insurers that their advisors can’t reach everyone who needs insurance. Just as important, Sun Life has found a way to sell directly to clients with the approval of its advisors: the insurer asks an advisor for permission to call a segment of his or her clients; most advisors give it (less than 1% have declined); then the advisor receives a small slice of commission and they’re informed if a client buys. “It helps advisors identify who is undergoing life change, or who is thinking of insurance more,” Kong says. “An advisor might call the client to thank him and to talk about what else might work. We’ve seen ancillary sales success, too.“The view in the industry is that direct sales and the advisory base are competing channels, but we really do believe that they are complementary,” Kong adds. “You’ll never sell a complex product like universal life directly. But direct sales gets people in the door.”
Technology is also part of it, says Brad Smith, president of Toronto-based ReMark Americas, a unit of Amsterdam-based ReMark International BV, and a consultant who has three of the top five banks as clients. If brokers, MGAs and the insurers can sort out their databases, the economies of scale for mass marketing will be obvious. “We feel that there’s a much bigger opportunity out there,” he says.

· Many signs suggest that the direct-sales trend is going to grow. Forrester’s research shows that 23% of Canadians use the Internet to research life insurance. Another 29% complete research over the phone, while 15% do so by mail. The implication is that once the technology is available to underwrite through these channels, sales will follow. “It’s nothing but good for the whole industry,” says Henderson. “If people don’t start somewhere, they go much of their lives without the basic coverage.”

RBC Life uses a multi-platform approach to serve its market

Canada’s largest bank is moving aggressively into the growing market for life and wealth products
RBC Life Insurance Co. of Mississauga, Ont., is the product of a handful of acquisitions made by its parent, RBC Financial Group, and its strategy very much reflects a multi-channel, multi-platform approach.
“The industry has consolidated quite a bit over the past 10 years with all the M&A activity that has taken place,” says John Young, president and CEO of the carrier. “RBC Life is a part of that.”RBC Life includes a number of distribution platforms. It has a 300-member career sales force, a managing general agency business, national accounts, direct sales, near-branches and strategic alliances.
· It counts up to 17,000 wholesale advisors who have done business through its MGA. “The vast majority of all life insurance and wealth [product sales] comes through the MGA channel, so it’s a very important channel for us, and one in which we’re very active,” says Neil Paton, vice president of insurance sales development at RBC Life. At least a third of its living-benefits sales arrive via the MGA channel as well.RBC Life’s national accounts include advisors at sister firm RBC Dominion Securities Inc. and other traditional investment dealers and mutual fund dealers across the country. The company has also developed a strong market among small insurance brokerage outfits, and some of the larger, multiple-advisor producers. “We have a lot of history there, especially in the living-benefits marketplace,” says Paton.
It doesn’t end there. RBC has a long-standing corporate partnership with State Farm Group of Cos. , based in Illinois. RBC provides individual disability insurance to the Canadian unit, Aurora, Ont.-based State Farm Insurance. It also offers the same product through Sun Life Financial Inc.
· “Where other entities don’t have the skill or expertise that we do, we form strategic alliances with them,” says Paton. “We have a number of relationships like that.”

· Among those relationships, RBC provides an exclusive universal life product to Toronto-based PPI Financial Group, the national managing general agent and brokerage that has carved out a niche in the high net-worth market. RBC Life’s direct sales channel is also growing quickly with the help of third-party agency, the Edge Benefits Inc. , based in Newmarket, Ont., through which it sells what it calls “simplified” life insurance. The Edge provides product administration and markets disability insurance mostly to small business owners who do not have the finances to fund a full employee benefits program. “We have a method in which we insure [the policyholder’s] gross revenue, as opposed to net income, which is a problem for self-employed people,” says Paton. “So, we’ve had quite a bit of success there over the past five or six years.”Most recently, RBC Life launched simplified critical illness insurance for coverage of cancer, heart attack and stroke, with benefits up to $75,000. It also announced new renewable rates for its term 10 and 20 products.

· Not to be forgotten, the company operates a 300-advisor career sales force as a national entity separate from other channels. Last year, it equipped this sales force with new laptops that were loaded with illustrations software. The advisors, spread among 19 branches across the country, concentrate mostly on life insurance sales, with about 10% to 15% of their sales in living benefits. Full financial planning is not yet part of the equation for the advisors, says Paton, and, as such, new recruits are expected to meet minimum regulatory licensing requirements — although the certified life underwriting designation is encouraged, says Young.

CAREER AGENTS

Paton notes the career channel tends to attract recruits who appreciate the value of the RBC brand, the training program and the breadth of the product offering. “We have a bank act that prevents us from certain activity,” he says. “But there’s a lot of things we can do to promote awareness of insurance and provide general information to those customers, which can drive more opportunities to our organization.” Branch managers are under orders to hire, train and develop growth organically, one rep at a time. “That means bringing in young talent,” Young adds, referring to the aging insurance advisor. Rounding out the distribution are the so-called “near-branch” outlets that RBC Life has bundled together on street corners and in strip malls with Royal Bank of Canada branches. These tend to sell mostly property and casualty insurance, product categories that are not under CEO Young’s watch. But, he says, the outlets are increasingly selling the simplified life insurance and living benefits solutions as well. “The growth we see in these channels is high from a percentage stand point,” he says. “But it may be because the base is rather smaller.”

This smorgasbord of distribution channels hasn’t necessarily satisfied RBC Life. If the right opportunities came along, it could still open up more channels with other acquisitions. “We think of ourselves as a multi-channel organization,” Young says. “And we’re trying to reach a broad swath of clients. To do that we know we have to run effectively multiple distribution channels.”
SEG FUND OFFERING on the product side, the company has jumped into other waters. In November 2006, it launched 12 segregated funds, or RBC Guaranteed Investment Funds, with underlying RBC Asset Management Inc. funds, as well as four model portfolios to suit different investor profiles. Sales “met expectations,” says Young, and the company added two new funds to its lineup in 2007. “We wanted that seg funds offering, because it is a key product for asset-accumulation solutions but for income-distributions solutions, as well,” adds Young. “Or, for mitigating the risks of investment after folks retire because of the guarantees that seg funds offer.”He notes that RBC is watching the guaranteed minimum withdrawal benefit market closely, but it’s not about to make any product announcements of its own.Inside the RBC Financial Group, RBC Life is well supported, adds Young: “Royal Bank recognizes the role that improving insurance results can play in differentiating us, and moving us away from other financial services institutions.” RBC Life’s executives see an opportunity to service and sell to a large group of Canadians whose needs are not being met by the marketplace. They say the overall RBC Financial Group was created to develop wealth-management strategies among the traditional banking, brokerage and insurance silos as much as is possible under current regulations. “It’s in its infancy, but it’s still a mammoth opportunity to serve the Canadian marketplace,” says Paton. “We have robust expectations about the future potential,” adds Young, “and growth that can come out of this.”

Source:
Investment Executive
January 2008
A Final Observation:

Dan Zwicker.

The Banks have an ‘Outside – In’ marketing focus. They work from the customer back – they include the customer’s agenda. RBC has used ‘FIRST’ in its advertising for several years to emphasize their focus on the customer as being their FIRST priority.

The Life Insurance Industry has an ‘Inside – Out’ marketing focus. They promote their product agenda.

For over 30 years the best and the brightest CEO’s (Jack Welch – GE) have produced their success through an ‘Outside – In’ marketing discipline.

The Banks have it right.

The life companies have it wrong.

The banks have gained preferred boomer market share. (58%)

The life companies have very little preferred boomer market share. (2%).

The information technology industry (IT) has typically focused on the ‘T’ – data – for use ‘Inside’ the corporation.

We are focused on the 'I' – information – which reflects consumer need ‘Outside ‘ the corporation.

Real time global access to the consumer is available to translate need into demand.

The paradigm is an ‘Outside’ – ‘In’ customer centric operating focus.

DUE DILIGENCE >> OPTIMAL SOLUTIONS >> EXPONENTIAL RESULTS

We provide our clients with a multi - disciplinary collaborative team of high performance financial services professionals whose practice is a collaborative integrative strategic partnership.Our process in solving the current and lifetime client centred financial lifestyle planning needs of our clients includes the disciplined application of due diligence within a highly interactive, graphic, intelligence software based, real time discovery of all priority issues, needs and expectations............the financial diagnostic analysis equivalent of an MRI.The application of our state-of-the-art interactive, comprehensive client centred planning process is central to our commitment to client empowerment.We will guide you through complex decisions in managing your evolving lifestyle planning needs through our collaborative process of high performance needs based solutions coaching.Given the complexities and interpersonal dynamics that can arise in meeting family, business and professional needs our use of a collaborative professional interactive planning process includes highly trained specialists in a wide spectrum of estate, legal, accounting, tax, strategic business planning and IT applications disciplines. Through our use of a Broad Concept approach to life and estate planning we pay particular attention to the impact of family and business interpersonal dynamics on the planning process.

THE IMPACT OF REAL TIME COMMUNICATION

In a 24/7 globally wired world we are fully committed to the use of information technology which allows us to communicate interactively in real time with our clients and colleagues via voice, electronic mail, text, web based and multi media communications applications. Timely collaborative real time interactive communication in a wired world is a key factor among others in creating competitive advantage. Our style is open and direct.

COLLABORATIVE INTEGRATIVE TEAMWORK

In the delivery of complex knowledge and information through our professional practice it is a core operating principle that our team members engage in a fully interdependent, collaborative, optimal understanding and diagnosis of and solution to the unique needs and expectations of our clients. Our process is based entirely upon integrative thinking. We seek answers that are available not simply at the 'either or' outer edges of the solutions spectrum but rather those that optimally integrate the unique benefits contained in each of those extreme views into a balanced client centred solution.

Our viewpoint is best described by the following analogy:
You know the cup - "1/2 full - 1/2 empty."
There is a 3rd. option.
"Overflowing".

THE TRUSTED ADVISOR

Our purpose is an understanding of client centred life and financial needs.Our solution is state-of-the-art life planning, process driven client empowerment applications.

The linchpin in all complex decision making is the quality of real time information available.

Acting upon financial advice with complete confidence is an act of consummate trust.The key to a successful result begins with the choice of a professional advisor. Begin with credentials which demonstrate a willingness to pay the price for professional competence through a commitment to formal training and continuing professional education.Interview your advisor candidate for transparency, integrity and experience directly related to your interests. Ask for references.In the delivery of complex information and knowledge services through a professional practice trust is paramount.......trust is the linchpin.

Through our practice we are committed to making the choice of a financial advisor in whom there is both confidence and trust uplifting.Our committment to these objectives is unconditional.

OUR FOCUS: RAISING THE BAR: DUE DILIGENCE >> OPTIMUM SOLUTIONS >> EXPONENTIAL RESULTS

We are in the business of assuring the provision of Lifetime Lifestyle Protection in response to our clients' key financial concern.......

"Will I be OK?"

Our focus is the creation, management, preservation and distribution of lifetime capital and income.

"Although assets are our currency, our only resource is time."

Estate planning is complex emotionally, intellectually and pragmatically.Our approach is uplifting. Our highly interactive and dynamic lifestyle planning process is uniquely about you.....your wants....your changing lifetime needs....and your future expectations.

We preserve the capital and income value of "time".

Time is a finite, measureable exponential risk........ and invaluable.

The management of capital risk through Professional Practice is our discipline and the fundamental basis of all client centred decisions.

We serve as a collaborative trusted life planning advisor on behalf of our clients acting interdependently with all other members of the advisory team.

Our competitive advantage rests in our collaboratively integrative team thinking and our disciplined contract execution environment.Our principal objective is the empowerment of those for whom we are responsible.

We are specialists in Advanced Life Insurance Applications and Estate Planning Solutions

INSTITUTIONALIZED MEDIOCRITY

We first heard the term "institutionalized mediocrity" in a seminar presentation made by one of the leading life insurance advocates for change in the paradigm we use to deliver financial advice. His premise is simple. Our institutions have been designed to produce large volumes of products economically through the use of numerous incremental production sequences. The production process places limits on human resource responsibilty, skill and initiative necessary to strive for personal excellence. In general, products are designed to have as broad a market appeal as possible in order to achieve an optimum level of profitabilty. In many ways the system has achieved its economic objectives. However, neither the delivery of financial security nor the delivery of competent health care are commodities. Prescribed medication and financial products are volume driven, price and profit sensitive production goods. Herein lies the compromise built into the standards of delivery of these goods to the consuming public. Professional advice be it medical or financial is by its nature impartial. It is the outcome of disciplined professional diagnosis. The delivery of "prescriptions", however, be they medical or financial products are driven by institutional demands for low cost, high volume and sustainable profit. The delivery of these "prescriptions" is greatly influenced by institutional economic realities that go beyond client care. They address demand but not care. Care is addressed by caregivers be they physicians or financial advisors. In the marketing of "prescriptions" institutions devote significant effort to promoting their proprietary medical or financial products. The incentives built into the delivery system are economically driven. The system does not include a focus on patient care. It includes simply economic results. The contradiction in purpose between the production of product solutions and the diagnostic advice necessary to prescribe optimum client solutions becomes compromised by the delivery process. Herein lies the origin of solution decisions that can be best described as "institutionalized mediocrity". Needless to say excellence in the delivery of both medical and financial services is available but not to the broadest income sectors which need it and for whom it is simply not available. Given the grossly inadequate number of professionally educated and trained advisors in Canada in both the accumulation and preservation of capital 14,000,000 boomers simply do not have access to the excellence of service they require given their extraordinary numbers. The system is ill prepared to handle the demand. Boomers demand excellence of themselves and expect the same of those who attend to their most personal needs. The current system cannot deliver the professional skill required by virtue of the lack of fully qualified professionals. Mediocrity is an inacceptable condition in this country. We are focussed on a solution to this need.

PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE: OUR RIGOROUS DISCIPLINE

We believe that in the delivery of financial services that the life insurance industry, its products, distribution and client services must be held to the same academic, training and continuing education standards as are practiced by the traditional professions, namely, Medicine, Law, Accounting and Professional Engineering. Next to our personal health our financial health ranks as an essential need in each of our lives. We live in a "Money Economy". Its comprehension, accumulation, retention, preservation and balanced use are essential in fulfilling a healthy personal life. In the delivery of these services every financial advisor is entrusted with the same standard and duty of client care expected of those who practice in the traditional professional disciplines.

The following process is our key to the delivery of the standard of professional practice excellence we expect:

Real time information >> timely open and direct communication >> clarity >> due diligence >> client centred needs based analysis >> collaborative multi-disciplinary interdependent professional practice >> innovation >> transparency >> continuous improvementt >> optimal solutions >> exponential results >> accountability >> unconditional client satisfaction

INTEGRATIVE SOLUTIONS: REQUIRED

The solution to the needs of 14,000,000 boomers in Canada requires the integration of 4 elements, namely, products, distribution, competently trained and highlt competent intellectual capital i.e. designated advisors and real time IT/media based, highly interactive communication competence. The boomers and their children are wired and ready.The Canadian life insurance industry is competent and creative in the design and production of contemporary products. The Canadian banking industry has exceptional distribution, namely, a nation wide distribution channel that includes over 6,000 bank branches and other delivery channels and the Canadian life insurance has a nation wide network of licensed life insurance advisors. We believe that the solution to the boomer/middle income life insurance needs can only arise out of the integration of the best in each of our highly successful and in many ways exemplary Canadian financial institutions.It requires the integration of the best not the worst. A fully operational platform already exists with RBC.Banking is transactional except for the wealth management sector. Insurance is both transactional and relationship driven. The boomer sector requires advice obtained through trust relationships. This need is and has always been the toughest need to fulfill through our conventional existing platforms. Accordingly, it has been abandoned by the life industry as a direct result of the change in the Ontario legistation governing the independence of life insurance advisors. No one sector has the solution. The Banks and the life industry together do.Integration can only succeed if the absolute focus is on the needs of the enormous market sectors whose well being is at stake. One other entity that would prefer to see a solution is the government of Canada. If our banking and life institutions fail to solve the needs of this very vital economic group the government will be forced to find their own solution. If they do an integrated solution might look very attractive.Finally the IT means of communicating efficiently in real time is here and being used extensively by the sector most at risk. The distribution/advisory/communication solutions are in place. We are executing our plan of action.
® 2004 D.H. Zwicker Financial

BEYOND TRANSACTIONAL SALES: PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE CONTINUITY THROUGH SUCCESSION

How do you meet the ongoing longterm advisory needs of a professional practice life insurance clientele once the principal decides or needs to retire?

How do you meet these needs when there have been few new entrants recruited to the life insurance industry since 1996?

How do you compete to attract the available professionals when there are 14,000,000 boomers, their children and parents who are going through the largest financial transfer of wealth in history?

It takes more than a decision to look after these pivotal issues when the time comes. Succession does not take place without highly trained, professionally competent advisors who are available and easily identifiable in sufficient numbers to satisfy the demanding needs of these sectors. They must be willing to enter a succession agreement with the principal of a life insurance practice and above all be welcome as a successor to the longterm clients of the principal.

Products are replaceable. Longterm trust professional relationships are not. They are earned over time and not easily transferable.They will be attracted to a practice which has a viable, compatible client base and a solution to the need to generate new business in an industry where the need is 100% and the demand is zero.The creation of new business requires an engaging integrative solution that includes product, distribution and fully trained, competent intellectual advisor capital. The use of real time /media based interactive IT communication is the final piece in the solution.

We are doing just that.

BEYOND TRANSACTIONAL SALES: TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP

The growth of the life insurance industry in Canada is treading water. Its failure to adapt to the realities of our contemporary growing consumer need for professional financial advice has all but stunted its rightful growth. Nothing less than highly engaging transformational leadership is essential in meeting the extraordinary demands of the boomer (14,000,000 in Canada and 76,000,000 in the US), broad middle income as well as the other traditional sectors. The industry must retool or perish. We believe unequivocally in the unique role insured financial instruments play in the assurance of personal financial dignity in each of our lives. We are in the experiential marketing business not the financial products selling business.

Our ability to bring a realtime answer to the financial question we each have, namely,

"Will I be O.K.?"

will determine our future sustainable competitive advantage. We are bringing our industry leadership to help create a solution to this fundamental economic need.How, then, and where will this enormous advisor group be put into place?

The need is now and we have lost 12 years of preparation time.

BEYOND TRANSACTIONAL SALES: ENGAGEMENT LEADERSHIP

How do you sell a product for which the need is 100% since we all die and the demand is zero.

You do not sell it.

It requires an act of one on one leadership.

Life insurance is not a transactional commodity. It is a personal values based decision which is achieved only after a successful act of professional engagement. The process of engagement has no purpose other than to offer an opportunity to elicit our best effort in satisfying our most personal and confidential human needs, instincts, beliefs and values. The commodity driven financial services industry needs to equip itself with the contemporary real time solutions necessary to deal with the highly personal engagement needs each of us has with regard to this specific subject. Genuine leadership does not sell. It engages. For over 150 years the distribution of life insured financial instruments has failed to insure the majority of those who need it most. Trust is the linchpin. Trust in the leader. The conventional sales model has had a conventional model market penetration result. Over 50% of the Canadian marketplace has inadequate life insured protection. 77% of Canadians do not have a personal life insurance advisor that they consider their own. The industry distribution model has never solved the sales model attrition problem except for 1 to 2 companies. The model institutionalized mediocrity.Our primary focus is to change the dynamics of the process to suit the needs of our contemporary marketplace...well informed...sophisticated in their need for professional advice and wired to receive it in real time. We need to do much better.

We are doing just that.

BEYOND NUMBERS: LIFESTYLE PRESERVATION

A simple point and click personal values based process based upon your lifestyle and demographic answers will clarify what immediately available solution choices you should undertake to ensure an answer to the original question "Will I be O.K.?"You will understand:How your personal attitude toward risk exposure affects your financial solution.How your cash flow impacts on your goal numbers and on product solutions.How your lifestyle uniquely quantifies a product solution that is specifically designed for you.How the time horizon you have for the achievement of your goals impacts upon both the asset mix and product solutions required to cover capital accumulation, capital risk preservation and guaranteed lifetime income. The solution outcome includes: The duration of solutions - Allocation of funds required for both both risk and accumulation -The impact of family and business circumstances -Both generic and specific product alernative recommendations. The short simple process has one objective: To allow you to act at your convenience with confidence.

BEYOND NUMBERS: RIGOROUS SIMPLICITY

In a world of uncertainty every consumer has a right to have access to financial information that is open and direct and is rigorously simple to acquire and understand. It must provide a clear answer to our underlying financial concern - "Will I be O.K.?"The information should provide a rigorously designed personal lifestyle based solution which describes the way in which our expressed needs define the financial planning solution. It must provide a clear understanding of the relevance of the solution to our unique circumstances.We offer a comprehensive rigorously designed and compliant financial overview that clarifies the personal basis of the solution and presents alternatives that elaborate on the optimal strategy required by you to accomplish your lifetime financial capital and income preservation goals.The complexity is kept where it belongs - on the inside of the rigorously designed unique software logic. The simplicity is yours where it belongs to assist you in making your financial choices clear.Our simple point and click approach will educate, inform and coach you to a solution within minutes - without fail.Financial literacy should be a universal right but has existed as a mystery understood by the privileged few. We have chosen to change the consumer access to information paradigm to suit our contemporary enlightened needs and expressed desire for a simplified lifestyle based financial process.

BEYOND RISK

"Will I be O.K.?"

A direct answer to this universal financial question posed by Wachovia Securities in the US will supply the information necessary to determine whether our financial position today places us beyond the financial risk of depleting our capital or our income prematurely - no matter what the cause - global market volatility - an unexpected loss of our personal health or the loss of our life.Traditionally we deal with the accumulation of personal capital in one of two ways - through the use of registered and non-registered assets.

"THE THIRD ASSET GROUP"

There is a "third asset group" that provides the foundation 'floor' below which our years of effort in accumulating capital cannot be depleted. This term reflects the fact that capital and lifetime income in this third asset group are contractually guaranteed at predetermined levels no matter which of the above unexpected events occur. These are a life insured asset group. They guarantee the maintenance of the capital asset value of our lifetime of personal effort in accumulating both the capital and the income that our capital is capable of producing - no matter what happens in either our global financial environment or to our personal health or our life."Although assets are our currency, our only resource is time."The third asset group guarantees the financial value of our time - past, present or future.In a digitally 'wired' real time IT global world we are fully engaged in and committed to providing real time communication and access to applied solutions through our collaborative Professional Practice.A genuine answer to the simple question at the beginning of this page has been the nucleus of our focus and commitment to professional practice for 30 years.The 'market' is driven by three instincts - greed - fear - preservation. Our passion focusses on the lifetime preservation of capital and income.

We are specialists in Advanced Life Insurance Applications and Estate Planning Solutions.

CFP PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE STANDARDS

The Financial Standards Planning Council (FPSC) has officially announced changes to its Certified Financial Planner certification program, which will come into effect July 1, 2010. The changes to the CFP certification Program ensure future candidates have access to the most meaningful educational opportunities, practical and relevant work experience and an incremental path for demonstrating competence in applying and integrating the vast array of knowledge required for professional financial planning.These program changes mark the complete alignment of the CFP certification program with the CFP professional Competency Profile. The Profile recognizes the financial planning profession as practice oriented, and clearly establishes the distinct set of technical knowledge, skills and abilities required of CFP professionals. Rigorous standards apply to: Education, Work Experience and Ethics Requirements.

THE CANADIAN BANKERS ASSOCIATION:
LIFE INSURANCE: THE WORDS AND THE MUSIC


The following is taken from the website of the Canadian Bankers Association:

THE WORDS

Consumer Protection.

Voluntary Commitments and Codes of Conduct.

CBA Code of Conduct for Authorized Insurance Activities.

The Purpose of this Code.

Canadian chartered banks are committed to meeting the insurance needs of their customers by providing them with access to authorized insurance products in a manner that serves customer interests. Banks will ensure that representatives offering these products are knowledgeable, provide clear product disclosure, respect customer privacy and provide prompt investigation of any problems customers may experience. This code sets out the minimum standards that apply to bank representatives who promote authorized insurance products in Canada..

The banking industry, through the Canadian Bankers Association, will review this model code from time to time to make sure that it is relevant and up to date.Training.

Bank representatives who promote authorized insurance products are properly trained, qualified and knowledgeable. Banks are committed to providing continuing education to their representatives on authorized insurance products.

THE MUSIC

http://www.cbc.ca/marketplace/in_denial/

Please visit the above site, click on the video and judge for yourself.

THE STATISTICS OF SUPPLY

In 1996 life insurance companies in Canada discontinued their support of the lifetime Career distribution channel as a direct consequence of the Ontario provincial legislation passed in that year. The legislation made it unprofitable to invest the time and resources necessary to provide new advisor recruiting, development, professional life insurance training and continuing education for professionals who chose a lifetime career in this field.Here are the stats:Fewer than 10% of the 17,000 certified financial planners in Canada are under age 34.The average age of financial advisors in all distribution channels, according to Investment Executive research, is 47. Some estimates place the average age of insurance advisors at 57.The total number of life insurance members of Advocis, the Canadian life insurance organization responsible for granting professional life insurance designations is approximately 12,000. The maximum number of advisors who are dual licensed having both life insurance industry designations and a Certified Financial Planning designation does not exceed 12,000. The total number of life insurance licensed advisors in Canada is 55,000.There are 14,000,000 boomers in Canada entering retirement who need Financial Planning, Retirement Planning and Estate Preservation Planning professionally trained and qualified advisors.To accommodate every boomer in Canada the advisors who are fully designated would have to acquire 1,000 new clients each.The supply logistics are prohibitive under the current distribution conditions. There are simply too few experienced and designated advisors to absorb the massive boomer numbers. To solve the supply problem we are changing the distribution paradigm.
® 2004 D.H. Zwicker Financial

OUR SOLUTION: WHAT WE DO AND HOW WE DO IT

A REAL TIME MARKETING/DISTRIBUTION PARADIGM

We have changed the distribution paradigm to accelerate real time boomer access to contemporaries collaboratively on an interactive community web 2.0 based platform who are actively engaged in their own retiremnent planning to compare notes and to then have access upon request to the best and the brightest professional financial practitioners in Canada who are professionally qualified to assist the boomers in arriving at a specific solution to each of their unique retirement capital and income preservation needs on an open and direct real time basis. Our unique consumer friendly, rigorously designed PDA handheld and PC compatible web based personal lifestyle (point and click/non numeric) financial capital planning software application will pinpoint a financial retirement capital shortfall in 5 minutes.The software answers a fundamental question we each have about our personal financial retiement capital, namely,

"Will I be O.K.?"


We are in the business of accelerating the resolution of the demand for structural financial security among almost 90,000,000 Boomers in North America. The financial product and service solutions to the needs of each unique boomer remains the responsibility of each boomer and their personal financial advisor.

OUR UNIQUE COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE

Our unique competitive advantage rests in our collaboratively integrative team thinking and in our rigorously disciplined contract execution. We integrate the best of "either or" choices into an optimum solution.We are client needs focussed. It forms the basis of all our choices in the development of any solution. The final test is that our solutions serve the greater good. These criteria are central to our engagement.

THE PROBLEM

We are identifying and bringing our best and brightest professional practice financial advisors in Canada together in a collaborative initiative to change the financial advisor access paradigm from its past status to a contemporary real time consumer sensitive delivery alternative. These professionally dedicated, competent and genuine individuals will be at the receiving end of real time interactive communication media including direct calls, email, text mail, conventional mail and other web based requests for answers and solutions to the fundamental question we each have about our financial future and that of those for whom we are responsible....."Will I be O.K.?" These professionals will provide the answers for our boomers, their children, their parents as well those in all other sectors of our economy who have not had an opportunity to develop a long term trust relationship with a financial professional on a par with the trust relationship they have with their own personal physician. Our dedicated physicians provide us with access to the dignity we experience with good health. Our dedicated professional financial advisors provide us with access to the dignity we experience in being financially independent. We are each entitled to experience nothing less. We are grateful for the opportunity we have had to experience these benefits in our own lives and to have assisted others in achieving the same benefits in their lives for over 31 years.The financial services sector is moving through a transition from product promotion to the delivery of impartial professional practice advice. It has been ongoing for over 12 years. We are acting as a catalyst to accelerate the process so that the benefits of the professional financial advice that we have experienced and delivered can be extended to the large demographic groups whose need for such advice can be met.We believe that it is of vital financial importance to all Canadians that we accelerate the availability of innovative real time contemporary direct access to experienced financial services professional practitioners. If such direct access is left unresolved it will impede the retirement aspirations of 14,000,000 boomers as well as having a collateral impact on the financial retirement results of all other consumer sectors in Canada.

TIME: AN ICONIC VIEW

This site is dedicated to the life, unparalled achievements and memory of Mr. Ben Feldman. Ben lived his adult life in East Liverpool, Ohio.

His depth of understanding of the complexities of life insured financial instruments began over 65 years ago. Ben was the pre-eminent icon among advisors in the North American Life insurance industry. His understanding of the function, value and place that life insured financial instruments play in each of our financial lives was unequalled. His vision, his industry leadership, his articulation, his unmatched productivity in this field are equalled only by his unassuming behavior. He was a genuinely gentle man. He had the strength of character to share his unique value and client needs based understanding with generations of professionals in the financial services industry.....for which we are grateful.

Ben produced more business as an individual advisor than that of entire companies. Ben Feldman (1912–1993) was an American businessman and one of the most prolific financial services practitioners in world history. He sold $1,800,000,000 of life insurance with New York Life Insurance from 1942 until his death in 1993.

His view of the assurance of the financial value of our lifetime of monetary effort follows:

"We guarantee the financial value of the time that we each expect to have in order to complete our financial plans for ourselves, our families and for our communities.If you cannot complete your plans as a result of a seismic economic collapse, a personal loss of health or of the premature loss of life the financial capital and income value of this lost time will be guaranteed and delivered to those whose lives depend upon our efforts."

He believed it was essential to put a financial "floor" below our capital as a base below which our assets cannot be depleted for reasons beyond our personal control. He dedicated his professional life to delivering upon this deeply held view. It was his passion.We refer to insured financial contracts as "The Third Asset Group".No other financial instrument offers such lifetime preservation guarantees of capital and income.There are two essentials necessary for our survival. Good personal health.....and good financial health. We believe that the assurance of good financial health ranks second only to our good personal health. We are dedicated to this view.

The life insurance contract is among the most complex financial instruments that exist. It is based upon the arcane mathematics of actuarial science and the equally complex discipline of medical science.His genius was in his ability to simplify it. Through his unique insight he conceived, created, developed and used simple analogies which he shared unselfishly with advisors and consumers.....resulting in an unparalleled gift of understanding.

Dan Zwicker
Toronto, Canada.

THE BEST AND THE BRIGHTEST

We are identifying and bringing our best and brightest professional practice financial advisors in Canada together in a collaborative initiative to change the financial advisor access paradigm from its past status to a contemporary real time consumer sensitive delivery alternative. These professionally dedicated, competent and genuine individuals will be at the receiving end of real time interactive communication media including direct calls, email, text mail, conventional mail and other web based requests for answers and solutions to the fundamental question we each have about our financial future and that of those for whom we are responsible....."Will I be O.K.?" These professionals will provide the answers for our boomers, their children, their parents as well those in all other sectors of our economy who have not had an opportunity to develop a long term trust relationship with a financial professional on a par with the trust relationship they have with their own personal physician. Our dedicated physicians provide us with access to the dignity we experience with good health. Our dedicated professional financial advisors provide us with access to the dignity we experience in being financially independent. We are each entitled to experience nothing less. We are grateful for the opportunity we have had to experience these benefits in our own lives and to have assisted others in achieving the same benefits in their lives for over 31 years.The financial services sector is moving through a transition from product promotion to the delivery of impartial professional practice advice. It has been ongoing for over 12 years. We are acting as a catalyst to accelerate the process so that the benefits of the professional financial advice that we have experienced and delivered can be extended to the large demographic groups whose need for such advice can be met.We believe that it is of vital financial importance to all Canadians that we accelerate the availability of innovative real time contemporary direct access to experienced financial services professional practitioners. If such direct access is left unresolved it will impede the retirement aspirations of 14,000,000 boomers as well as having a collateral impact on the financial retirement results of all other consumer sectors in Canada.

We are committed to facilitating the structural market resolution of the extraordinary demand being presented by the boomers in North America to those professional practitioners and their financial institutions who are best prepared to act in the financial security interests of this unique generation and their families.