New Life Ed.

(May 2006) Sam Albanese probably does not have as many plans for summer vacation as other insurance industry veterans. He is working his way toward launching the Certified Financial Service Practitioner program currently scheduled for September at Toronto’s Seneca College of Applied Arts and Technology.

Albanese positions the program as relief for the insurance companies, managing general agents and independent insurance brokers left at a disadvantage by the disbanding of career agent forces in the 1990s and the resulting training vacuum that, left unchallenged, will become larger as aged 50-plus brokers do their own retirement planning. He also thinks the program is ideal for dual-licensed advisors and those looking to become dual-licensed advisors since it gives equal weighting to issues affecting the mutual fund sector as well.

At a recent meeting, the program’s advisory board, consisting of insurers and MGAs, reviewed an outline of the curriculum with more details to be presented at the board meetings leading up to the fall launch. Within the insurance sector, Transamerica Life Canada, Empire Financial Group and Equitable Life Insurance Co. of Canada have made cash commitments of $25,000 to help cover start-up costs including materials. He hopes other major players such as Sun Life Financial, Desjardins Financial Security and Manulife Financial will soon sign on.

Although not part of the original plan, Albanese received financial support of $2,500 apiece from MGAs such as Equinox Financial Group, Hub Financial, Gryphin Advantage, Allen Wong & Associates, PerformINS Canada and others. He is also getting support from the Independent Financial Brokers of Canada and Advocis.

To support the fund component of the program, Albanese hopes for positive reaction from mutual fund companies such as AIM Trimark Investments and CI Investments and Franklin Templeton Investments. With a view to providing each student with a full tool kit, Albanese is also negotiating with Toshiba of Canada to acquire laptop computers. Each laptop will come with software from the program’s start-up funders.

As currently planned, the program has two 12-week semesters, one oriented towards insurance and the other oriented towards mutual funds and financial disciplines. The insurance semester includes studying for and writing the test for the Life Licence Qualification Program. It also contains course work in what Albanese terms the hard skills, with a 40% weighting in the overall program including product training, product categories investment concepts and strategies used to sell various products. The remaining 60% will focus on soft skills such as understanding the sales cycle, putting together an office budget, time management and software training for Word, Excel and other standard programs.

“The end result here is we want [the student] to set up [their] own practice,” he explains. “[They’re] going to have a very solid base of skills including things that insurance companies did so well in the old days and today don’t do at all,” he adds, referring to practices now abandoned by many insurers of hiring and training large numbers of career agents.

Albanese says the mutual fund semester is still being developed but will also include licensing and some combination of how mutual funds actually work, differences between mutual funds and segregated funds, tax planning, estate planning, other financial disciplines, as well as client strategies and interviewing techniques.

In order to make the September deadline, Albanese faces several challenges including two sets of approval processes: the advisory board members and the Seneca College Centre for Financial Services. He also has to increase support from insurance companies, MGAs and at least some mutual fund companies.

Seneca College (as with other Ontario community colleges) also offers a stand-alone version of the LLQP and marketing efforts would have to ensure that applicants clearly understand both choices and establish credibility for the Certified Financial Service Practitioner Program so the CFSP does not get lost in the long list of other designations.

Finally, either Albanese or his supporters will have to replicate the program to fulfill longer-term plans to offer the program across Canada.

This article was originally published in Advisor’s Edge Report.

(05/09/06)