In the April issue of Senior Market Advisor, we published an article called “The Great Divide” where we allowed two of our readers an opportunity to square off Mano-a-Mano on the topic of whether advisors should have a securities license.
The feedback we’ve received from the article has been pretty powerful. We’ve heard from advisors, carriers, marketing organizations and industry talking heads. One email I received last week was particularly thoughtful and powerful — so much so that I wanted to share it with you in its entirety.
The following is from Thomas K. Brueckner, president and CEO of Senior Financial Resources Inc.
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I want to congratulate you on a great and balanced piece of reporting in your comparison of the two very different practices of Jerry Tokunaga and Richard G. Dragotta in “The Great Divide” in the April issue of Senior Market Advisor.
I was securities licensed for the first 13 years of my 21-year career and can appreciate both sides. It is obvious that Dragotta works with younger “pre-retired” clients for whom “planning” and long-term, risk-based investments are appropriate. Tokunaga, meanwhile, works with seniors aged 70 and over. For them, FIAs should be a core holding.
I don’t believe the argument is an either/or, black/white debate. It’s about which plan is appropriate for which demographic. Each client must be evaluated on his or her individual needs and priorities.
Having said that, I routinely meet with retired prospects in their early 70s who present with more than 80 percent of the monies it’s taken them 40 years to save in risk-intensive equities and mutual funds — because their advisor has so allocated them. I believe that this constitutes malpractice, and my staff and I have made it our mission to rescue such folk — using primarily Tokunaga’s FIAs to do so.