Approved IAR CE Courses

Selecting the right college and career pathway involves more than just academics and finances'it requires aligning a student's unique gifts, aptitudes, and purpose with the family's long-term financial strategy. Advisors play a critical role in helping families approach college planning as both an educational and financial investment.In Part 1, advisors will explore tools and coaching strategies that help students identify strengths and meaningful career paths, reducing costly transfers and misaligned major changes. In Part 2, advisors will learn how to evaluate a student's academic positioning, build strategic college lists, and manage the admissions process with a project-management mindset.By integrating personal purpose with academic competitiveness, advisors can provide families with a roadmap that contains both emotional and financial clarity'helping clients maximize admissions success while containing costs.

The Department of Labor (DoL) Retirement Security Rule (the "Final Rule") will go into effect on September 23, 2024. This rule significantly expands the application of the fiduciary standard, providing advisors with the task of reviewing their compliance programs and updating their processes to meet the new fiduciary standards. In this webinar, Jacqueline Hummel reviews the evolution of the Department of Labor's Retirement Security Rule, bringing advisors up-to-date with the latest information about the scope and implications of this fiduciary standard. She further explains changes to Prohibited Transaction Exemption (PTE) 2020-02 and provides practical, actionable tips on how advisors can comply with the Retirement Security Rule.

Ever go through the process of reviewing a client’s risk tolerance questionnaire, only to find that their responses do not match their behavior during a financial crisis? If so, you are not alone. Most advisors have stories of just this scenario, with the results ranging from a good opportunity for client connection or education to disastrous impacts on a client’s portfolio or on the advisor-client relationship.

In this webinar, Dr. Meghaan Lurtz shares research-based findings on how financial advisors can reframe conversations about risk to foster deeper client understanding and risk alignment. She challenges the limitations of traditional risk tolerance questionnaires, advocating for a more human-centered, behaviorally informed approach that recognizes risk as contextual, emotional, and multidimensional. Using the seven dimensions of risk, she illustrates how planners can have richer, more empathetic discussions about risk, moving the conversation from a perfunctory assessment to an exercise that builds client trust, emotional safety, and decision-making.

Good People. Bad Things. begins by refreshing financial advisors on the most common types of insurance fraud, and then walks the financial advisors through how Good People. do Bad Things. using insurance fraud cases and examples.Good People. Bad Things alerts financial advisors to the mind set patterns, which can provide observable behavioral signals (red flags) that external pressures may be impacting decision making in general, and ethical decision making in particular.Good People. Bad Things. next explores the connection between observable behaviors in an office - its culture - and ethics. Purposefully managing the culture in an office impacts the probability of ethical choices by anyone working in that office.Good People. Bad Things. concludes with an ethical framework exercise, illustrating how a financial advisor can leverage office culture to support ethical decision making.

This course examines how Management Services Organizations (MSOs) can serve as a coordinated planning and execution framework for CPAs and RIAs working with business-owner clients. Participants will learn why traditional tax and investment advice often falls short without implementation and how MSOs help bridge that gap through governance, documentation, and disciplined execution. The session explores MSO mechanics, roles and responsibilities, lifecycle planning, and real-world applications, including advanced tax and exit strategies. By the end of the course, attendees will understand how MSO planning can improve client outcomes while supporting recurring revenue, retention, and long-term advisory value.

Individual retirement accounts (IRAs) are used to defer the recognition of income. In the Guide to Individual Retirement Accounts course, we discuss the various types of IRAs, caps on contributions to them, the deductibility of these contributions, required minimum distributions, and several related topics. The intent is to demonstrate how to maximize the deferral of income recognition while also minimizing the taxes and penalties associated with these accounts.

Guide to Social Security Benefits is an educational tool to help advisors through the maze of programs, rules and regulations that affect many if not all their aging Baby Boomer clients, their spouses and dependents.

Guide to Social Security Benefits is an educational tool to help advisors through the maze of programs, rules and regulations that affect many if not all their aging Baby Boomer clients, their spouses and dependents.

Change is constant, yet navigating it is often a challenge for individuals, especially during pivotal financial moments. This session equips financial advisors with the tools and frameworks to become effective agents of change, leveraging the Transtheoretical Model (TTM) to guide clients through the complexities of financial decision-making. Attendees will explore real-world case studies, uncover techniques to manage client ambivalence, and develop strategies to foster client confidence and self-efficacy. By mastering the art of adaptive communication and scenario planning, advisors can help clients align their financial behaviors with long-term goals, creating meaningful, lasting change.