Approved IAR CE Courses

Key challenges to the financial security of retirees resources, and strategies for distributing retirement savings to provide income for a lifetime are tackled in this course. Learn the need for post-retirement planning, risk management strategies for addressing illness and injury, long-term care, uninsured death, and outliving one's income.

Financial exploitation occurs when a person misuses or takes the assets of a vulnerable adult for their own personal benefit. Assets are commonly taken via forms of deception, false pretenses, coercion, harassment, duress and threats. This course will provide answers to these questions: What is financial exploitation? Who does it impact? What are the signals? Why should you care? What to do about it? Additionally, this course will review the features of a variable annuity, suitability of variable annuities, and supervisory responsibilities in regards to variable annuities.

Get clued into the financial planning process and the financial services industry. This course covers the basic analytic tools of the trade, income tax planning, risk management planning, retirement planning, wealth accumulation planning, estate planning, and business planning, and concludes with a look at the profession.

"Understanding the fundamentals of financial analysis is an important life skill as well as a requisite to providing sound investment advice to clients. Financial analysis was once considered only the language of Wall Street, but in today’s world of IRA’s and 401-k’s, the general population is learning more and more about financial analysis in order to preserve and enhance the value of their investments.

This course provides an overview of the fundamentals of financial analysis, its importance, and the tools used to understand financial statements.

Finally the course speaks to the warning signs and qualitative factors in financial analysis that need to be considered in evaluating changes to an investment portfolio."

This course introduces financial professionals to the information they will need to understand the products and services that are integral components of comprehensive investment planning programs.

This course is a self-studying offering that has no prerequisites or advanced preparation required. It is designed for participants who are on a basic to intermediate level.

The course will help financial professionals:

Learn and be able discuss investor objectives such as preservation of capital, growth and speculation
Understand the key characteristics of, and differences among, investment asset classes
Gain an overview of common investment techniques such as diversification and dollar cost averaging
Obtain an overview of how investment markets are regulated
Understand how investments trade on exchange and over-the-counter markets, including market participants, types of trading accounts, and mechanics of placing orders
Develop a more fluent investment vocabulary by knowing common terms used in discussing strategies and options with clients

In today's competitive financial services market, your ability to use estate and financial planning techniques to the best advantage of your clients is vital to your success. Trusts are one of the major building blocks of those techniques. This course is designed to cast you in the role of financial planner for five clients. You will interview the clients to determine their circumstances, needs, and resources. You will analyze their situations to develop a financial plan using trusts, and you will implement the plan with the execution of appropriate documents.

Numerous factors must be taken into account to formulate suitable strategies for investing retirement assets for today's retirees. This course provides an introduction to distributions from tax-qualified retirement plans, as well as an overview of the principles of asset allocation that may be appropriate for a retired or retiring client.

This course reviews the fundamental responsibilities of the investment adviser, the governing state and federal rules and regulations, brochure rules, and required disclosures.

This course describes the basic “building block” concepts in constructing diversified investment portfolios for individuals. It covers the techniques that professionals use to evaluate equities and bonds and also the common strategies that individual investors can pursue in asset allocation programs that utilize these asset classes.

As stocks and bonds are assembled into portfolios, risk factors are identified along with common tools and techniques for maintaining diversification and monitoring performance.

The lynchpin of the securities industry is the customer, and they must be considered above all else. If registered representative are to maintain high standards of ethical behavior, they must know and understand both the customer’s many facets, as well as the security they are recommending. FINRA has set up two “sister” rules that ensure fair dealing with the customer: 2090 (Know Your Customer) and 2111 (Suitability). This course examines certain facts essential to knowing the customer and making suitable recommendations.