Your Advocates

NAIFA-NJ Pushed For Agent ‘Come Clean’ Law

The Fiduciary Fight
The Financial Planning Coalition is calling for legislation to create a professional oversight board that would set minimum competency standards and establish ethics rules promoting the fiduciary standard of care. Here, Diahann Lassus, CFP, CPA, PFS (c), a Coalition representative, updates FPA New Jersey government affairs leaders William Stratton (l) and Jason Hochstadt on the “fiduciary fight” in Congress. The Coalition is comprised of the Financial Planning Assocoation (FPA), the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors (NAPFA) and the CFP Board of Standards. “We’re trying to keep the current fiduciary standard from being watered down and then extend it to anyone who gives financial advice,” said Lassus of New Providence, NJ, a past president of NAPFA.

NAIFA-NJ Government Relations Chair Dennis Cuccinelli
The New Jersey affiliate of the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors (NAIFA-NJ) scored both a political and a public relations coup last month when it shepherded through the state legislature a bill requiring insurance producers to tell the Insurance Department of any disciplinary action taken against them by a non-governmental agency, such as FINRA.

NAIFA-NJ got Assemblyman Jack Conners (D-Delran) and Senator Kip Bateman (R-Somerville) to sponsor the bill in their respective houses, then lobbied hard for its passage.

NAIFA-NJ Government Relations Chair Dennis Cuccinelli said the association took the action to “protect our members’ clients from unethical producers and also to protect our profession.

He noted that a small number of producers who were fined, suspended or barred by FINRA for misdeeds ranging from forgery to theft of client funds were still selling insurance.

FA