themed

“Rekindle the Passion”

hosted by the

Jamaica Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors (JAIFA)

Tuesday 11 January 2011

Brian Wynter

Governor, Bank of Jamaica

Speaking at JAIFA's Blast Off 2011

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Thank you for inviting me to join you in your ‘Blast Off’ and for giving me an opportunity to share with you my view of the economic outlook for 2011.

Had I been offered this opportunity last year, I would have sketched a picture of an economy that was struggling to come to terms with the impact of a global recession.  Output and employment were declining and were expected to fall further.  Even as incomes were falling, inflation was being driven by new tax measures as the Government tried desperately to keep up with the heavy burden of debt payments.  The only bright spot that I would have relied on to motivate you would have been the potential benefits of a radical debt initiative that was still in the design stage and the likelihood of strong international support if Jamaica could commit to a new path of fiscal and debt sustainability.

I’m glad to be able to join you at the start of 2011 because this time the outlook is different.  I hope that you will fully understand what I mean in a few minutes.

As advisors all, you would know that a large part of the value that you bring to your clients consists of an informed view of the kind of changes that we can expect in our economic environment – what will happen to inflation, incomes, the exchange rate, interest rates, taxation and so on.  All financial plans depend on these inputs.  In designing or choosing financial products for your clients, you seek to protect them from some of the risks to which they are exposed and, where applicable, you find a way for them to share in the proceeds of activities that are profitable and expanding.

I claim, as a kind of financial advisor myself, that inflation is the single most important variable affecting your future, the value of your products, the perceived value of your services and your own financial plans.  Inflation is the continuous, inexorable and sometimes rapid increase in the prices of the things we need to enjoy a decent life or even merely to survive day by day.  It eats away at our savings and makes nonsense of long-term financial plans.  And it has a direct link to those other variables that planners contend with such as growth, interest rates and the exchange rate.

I don’t have to tell you this.  This is the shared experience of everybody in modern day Jamaica.  No doubt you hear it from your clients every day.  Let me put it another way: a policy with a face value of $100,000 purchased by a young graduate 40 years ago is worth considerably less than 1,000 of those same dollars at his retirement.  In actual fact, the value of 100,000 of today’s dollars in terms of 1971 dollars is $177.22.

So, where is the other $99,000 or so of purchasing power?  Where has it gone?

On the face of it, nowhere.  The underwriter will still faithfully pay over the face amount or cash surrender value which could still be nominally $100,000.  But the expectation that this lump sum could have bought a house or provided an adequate source of investment income well into retirement is worse than a broken promise.  Time and inflation changed the price of everything except his savings.

As it turned out, from the day the policy or contract was signed, the value of the Jamaica Dollar has been steadily falling.  A dollar buys less each day.  Sometimes the impetus has come from some unexpected shortage of goods which causes the supplier to hike prices.  The ability to sustain demand at these higher prices has been helped by the bargaining power of workers who claim higher wages and salaries to compensate for the increased cost of living.  Property owners charge higher rent, owners of capital charge higher interest and demand higher profits and earners of foreign exchange hold out for higher exchange rates.  The Government too plays a role.  It borrows more to pay higher wages and distribute more financial support and if, instead, the Government were to resort to borrowing from the Central Bank, it would be simply printing more money to fund its activities thus adding fuel to the inflation fire.  At the end of the day, those without the ability to adjust their incomes to match inflation – such as pensioners, workers on fixed income and those with little income or property – become progressively poorer and their savings worth less and less.  Thus a princely $100,000 policy in 1971 eventually becomes little more than a funeral grant today.

When will this erosion of value stop?  It will not stop entirely.  Everywhere in the world prices change as the relative value of goods and services change and as basic exhaustible resources become scarcer.  But, as happens in the developed world and increasingly in emerging market economies, it is possible to conduct our affairs so that inflation is hardly a factor in our long-term plans.  The formula is simple enough although very challenging to put into practice.

First, we need to stabilise public finances.  We need to stop the process that demands that we keep borrowing just to keep servicing past borrowing.  We need to leave people with as much money in their pockets as possible and cease paying more employees than necessary to produce fewer and fewer goods and services.  That process has begun in the public sector and an encouraging degree of progress was made in 2010.  The Jamaica Voluntary Debt Exchange (JDX) provided a jump start by reducing annual debt serving costs by over $40 billion and has relieved cash flow requirements by extending the maturity of Government securities.  The grace period that this has provided is allowing time for the implementation of a series of reforms – from divestment, expenditure management and tax administration to overall resizing of government – that will see the Government’s borrowing requirement eliminated in three years.  It is a strong commitment to stakeholders, local and foreign, who are monitoring progress carefully.  The fiscal consolidation and financial discipline represented by these reforms is a key component of a stable low-inflation environment.

Second, the Central Bank has a key role to play.  Many low-inflation countries have modified their governance arrangements such that the Central Bank takes ‘independent’, or non – political, responsibility for achieving the inflation target that the country sees as desirable.  The Bank is then left to make the necessary periodic adjustments to its monetary policies so as to achieve this objective and reports to the country through Parliament at regular intervals.  It has worked well elsewhere and is being advocated by strong voices in the local private sector.  We at the Bank endorse this direction and have already begun to rearrange our internal operations to meet this new expectation.  By March 2011, we expect the 12-month inflation rate to fall to about 8 per cent, well within the target range announced for the fiscal year.  We at the Bank of Jamaica will do what is required of us to see that rate fall further and remain at a stable single-digit rate for the foreseeable future.

But much depends on what the public views as an acceptable rate of inflation.  Jamaica has experienced an average annual rate of inflation of about 15% over the past 50 years.  Our main trading partner, the USA, has averaged about 4% over the same period.  We need, as consumers, parents, financial planners and advisors to make our voices heard and help to forge a consensus on how much inflation is too much and oblige our public administrators to operate within our expectations.  If some find an easy inflation hedge at the expense of those on fixed contracts, we all lose in the end because the injustice of it will become intolerable to those at the losing end of events.

The burden of fostering a low inflation environment rests not only on the Government.  As you blast off into your own spheres of endeavour – as you ramp up your productivity and do more in a day using less fuel and less paper – you help to keep costs from continuously rising.  Productivity improvements are the single most effective way to grow income while keeping prices stable.  It thus becomes a business objective, a managerial guidepost and a personal resolution.  At the end of the day, your actions, your voices and your advice will be invaluable inputs into the mix that keeps Government and central bankers true to their promise and you true to your clients.

Plan for success this year and rest assured that we will do our part to maintain the integrity of those plans.

Thank you.

The six courses constituting the educational requirement for the CARAIFA LUTCF Designation are:

LUTC 201   Techniques for Exploring Personal Markets

LUTC 202 Techniques for Meeting Client Needs

LUTC 211   Essential of Disability Income Insurance

LUTC 251   Essentials of Business Insurance

LUTC 261   Foundations of Retirement Planning

LUTC 290 Ethics for the Financial Services Professional

LUTCF Designation

Upon completing the educational requirements for the LUTCF Designation, students are required to APPLY for the LUTCF Designation by completing a LUTCF application form (which they can source from their local association) and submit it to the CARAIFA Secretariat via email. Applications are accepted three (3) times per year: January, June, and September.

Please note that passing the LUTC 290 course does not automatically give a student the right to use the LUTCF Designation. They MUST apply to CARAIFA via their Local Association and receive an LUTCF Certificate.

LUTC 201 – Techniques for Exploring Personal Markets

Using effective marketing and prospecting strategies to identify potential clients

Course Description:

This course explores using effective marketing and prospecting strategies to identify potential clients.  It focuses on marketing that supports an overall client-focused selling strategy of building long-term, mutually beneficial relationships with clients. It teaches newer advisors how to develop basic marketing strategies for prospecting, target marketing, approaching prospects, and providing service within the personal insurance market. The course discusses how to identify what, to whom, and how to market.

Course Highlights:

• Presents basic planning concepts and needs applicable to the personal insurance market
• Covers the process of prospecting, with an emphasis on referrals
• Discusses how to develop a strategy for identifying target markets
• Addresses the process of client-building through servicing and monitoring insurance plans
• Discusses the concept of “life-cycle segmentation” for prospecting
• Presents basic product knowledge for life insurance, disability income, Medicare supplement, and other products.

Course Format:

This LUTC course is a moderated course and entails weekly classes and students MUST complete hand-in assignments and the final examination is in a multiple choice format. This is for every LUTC course except for LUTC 290.

LUTC 202 – Techniques for Meeting Client Needs

Uncover Your Clients’ Needs through Effective Communication

Course Description:

This course, now in a new format, offers an introduction to the life insurance sales career and the sales/planning process in the personal market. The course themes include total-needs selling, the consultative selling process, and the needs for personal life insurance. The course presents a discussion of skills used throughout the sales/planning process, from the initial client meeting, through fact-finding and sales presentations, to servicing and continuing a mutually profitable relationship. The course also reviews insurance products, policy provisions, underwriting, the taxation of life insurance and effective communication skills that will enhance an advisor’s business.

Course Highlights:

• Focuses on effective communication skills for use throughout the sales/planning process
• Presents basic sales skills to successfully conduct the sales/planning process
• Emphasizes the importance of relationship building skills as the basis of sales success.

LUTC 211 – Essentials of Disability Income

Course Description:

Disability income is a perfect complement to life insurance, offering cross-selling opportunities that increase agent productivity. This course examines disability income insurance and the related products of business buyout coverage, business overhead expense insurance, and long-term care insurance.

Course Highlights:

• Demonstrates what it means to be a true income protection expert.
• Reviews proven approaches used by the best in the business.
• Teaches how to overcome common objections and close the sale.
• Explains the critical need for disability income coverage.

LUTC 251– Essentials of Business Continuity

Design Solutions for the Business Owner

Course Description:

This course examines how the business owner can use life insurance to continue a business beyond his or her death or the death of another key person. It also explores the various organizational forms under which business owners operate and examines what to say, how to say it, and when to say it to capture the attention of the business owner. The course suggests effective words to use, sample letters and fact-finding forms, and presenting and closing techniques. The course covers how life and disability income insurance can guarantee the control and value of a business following the owner’s or key person’s death or disability through buy-sell agreements and key person insurance. The course also explores the basics of estate planning for the business owner.

Course Highlights:

• Reviews the problems and solutions to those problems that result from the death or disability of a business owner or key employee for the business and its dependents
• Explores succession planning, with emphasis on buy-sell agreements funded with insurance
• Examines the ways in which a business owner can retain and continue the value of the business in the case of death, disability, or retirement from the business
• Discusses the various organizational forms under which business owners operate
• Presents the basics of estate planning for the business owner

LUTC 261 – Foundations of Retirement Planning

Course Description:

This course provides an overview of how changing demographics are creating increased numbers of prospects for retirement planning. It addresses how the responsibility for planning continues to shift to individuals, and focuses on long-term retirement planning goals.

Course Highlights:

• Addresses ways to accumulate money for retirement, to fund an education, to satisfy long-term needs, and more.
• Discusses the role of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, and tax policies in retirement planning.
• Explores the suitability of accumulation vehicles, including stocks, bonds, mutual funds, life insurance, and annuities.

LUTC 290 – Ethics for the Financial Services Professional

Course Description:

This self-study course, designed by the holder of the American College’s Lamont Post, Chair of Ethics and the Professions, provides a practical, thought-provoking, and challenging presentation on ethical values in the decision-making processes of professionals in the financial services industry. The course goes beyond theoretical concepts by presenting a practical framework for making ethical business decisions; examining legal, compliance, and practice standards; and discussing ethical approaches to placing financial products, determining suitability, and assessing risk.

This course is required to earn the LUTCF designation, concludes with a final examination, which also must be taken if state continuing education credits are sought.

Highlights:

• Describes the evolution of the financial services market and its ethical problems
• Provides a framework for ethical decision making, including ethical sensitivity exercises and decision processes
• Discusses federal and state regulations, compliance limitations, the increasing emphasis on professionalism and ethics codes, and practice standards
• Explores the ethics of specific professional practices including unnecessary replacements, misleading sales practices, suitability requirements, and rebating, along with a discussion regarding conflicts of interest
• Examines the NASD Rules of Conduct and Fair Dealing with Customers
• Discusses the scope of responsibilities assumed by Registered Investment Advisors
• Discusses categories of investments, types of investment risk, and risk management, and provides a useful tool for assessing an individual’s risk tolerance and investment philosophy

Course Format:

This LUTC course is self-study course, but can be done in a classroom setting as arranged by students.

Passing Requirement:

A grade of at least 70% on the examination

Financial Services Specialist (FSS) Programme

CARAIFA Members in the business of selling life insurance MUST earn the LUTCF Designation BEFORE doing the FSS (Exception: students who have the CLU or ChFC).

For new agents the Financial Services Specialist designation provides them with practical sales skills and introductory-level technical knowledge to help advance their career.

For experienced advisors, these courses offer current knowledge on a wide range of products and services to help them explore new markets, retain your client relationship and compete for a larger share of their business. The FSS programme is a moderated programme.

After completing the LUTCF course requirements in order to attain the FSS designation individuals are required to do:

• 262 – Foundations of Financial Planning: An Overview
• 263 – Foundations of Financial Planning: The Process
• 264 – Foundations of Investment Planning

Course Description for FSS

FA 262 - Foundations of Financial Planning: An Overview

Course Description:

Provides an overview of the major components that make up a comprehensive financial plan, including the six step planning process, insurance planning, risk management, employee benefits planning, investment planning, income tax planning, retirement planning and estate planning. The course also covers Social Security and Medicare and their importance as the foundation of a client’s financial plan

Course Format: Local classroom

Course Length: 8 weeks and a final examination

FA 263 - Foundations of Financial Planning: The Process

Course Description:

This course examines the foundations of implementing the financial planning process with clients. It begins by reviewing the selling/planning process, and then proceeds to identifying markets and prospects. The course also covers the essential planning concepts of time value of money, risk tolerance determination and asset allocation solutions. Other topics include analyzing the fact-finding information and preparing personal financial statements, developing, presenting, implementing and servicing the financial plan, and financial planning applications and case studies.

• Provides an in-depth review of the selling/planning process as used in financial planning
• Examines key skill sets used by financial planners in working with clients
• Discusses important planning techniques needed to implement a financial plan
• Studies cases as a method for developing planning skills and techniques
• Explores financial planning from the point of view of the practitioner.

Course Format: Local classroom

Course Length: 8 weeks and a final examination

FA 264 - Foundations of Investment Planning

Course Description:

Provides an overview of what investment planning and the investment planning process are all about. Examines the securities markets and their regulation, the tax treatment of investors, how to measure investment returns, and investment risk. All types of investments are investigated, including mutual funds and other types of pooled investments. Each step in the investment planning process is analyzed, followed by a discussion of the role of ethics.

Course Format: Local classroom

Course Length: 8 weeks and a final examination

FA 200 – Techniques for Prospecting: Prospect or Perish

Using strategies to approach and meaningfully engage Prospects turning them into clients.

Course Description

FA 200 Techniques for Prospecting: Prospect or Perish teaches advisors industry proven methods for successfully identifying, selecting, and approaching prospects for financial products and services. The course covers procedures for creating prospect awareness, target marketing concepts, and prospect qualification and prioritization techniques. Strategic, tactical, and operational business planning processes are presented in detail.  Professionalism and ethics are also explored throughout the course.

Course Highlights:

• An insightful collection of prospecting strategies for financial services professionals.
• Overcome the psychological barriers to prospecting
• Learn innovative approaches to setting income and activity goals
• Learn and utilize effective contact management systems

Course Format

This FA 200 course is a moderated course and entails weekly classes and students MUST complete hand-in assignments and the final examination is in a multiple choice format.   Please note that there is a separate enrolment form for the course. Also note that the FA 200 course is a stand alone course that does not go towards your LUTCF or FSS designation at the end of the course programmes at this time.

FA 200 Passing Requirement

Please see passing requirement for the LUTC/FSS course.