“Make sure you stay educated and don’t ever think you get to that plateau where you know it all, because when you get there, it’s going to change.”
That’s a direct quote from Nevada Commissioner of Insurance Scott J. Kipper, delivered as a key takeaway for the audience at a roundtable session titled “Navigating the Regulatory Arena” during the 2014 Advisor Network Summit conference this summer in Las Vegas.
That’s also good advice for life insurance and annuity producers who continually need to stay on top of the specific features in products they are recommending to their clients. It was also more or less the central theme of the session, where Kipper was joined on the panel by Kim O’Brien, president and CEO, National Association for Fixed Annuities (NAFA), Sheryl Moore, president and CEO, Moore Market Intelligence.
Panelists said that agents and the people who work for them – not your FMO or carriers—are the ones who need to protect their business by being well versed in product features.
“The products you sell to your clients – you are the person who is responsible for that,” Moore told the audience made up largely of annuity producers. “You have all these materials you could have read that clear things up. There are over 900 different fixed and indexed annuities out there. Use the resources.”
Moore added that when she is talking with producers about annuities, she often finds out that they don’t completely understand the products. “It boggles my mind how few people that have sold these products have actually read the contract,” Moore said.