Approved IAR CE Courses

While retirement-income guardrails offer a convenient and easy-to-understand framework foradvisors to explain when a client would need to make portfolio adjustments to facilitate spendingduring retirement, certain guardrail models come with major limitations. For example, withdrawalrate guardrails are a commonly used framework, but they do not always accurately reflect a client'sdynamic income sources and actual spending behaviors. Risk-based retirement-guardrails, on theother hand, have the benefits of communication and clarity, while modeling a client's retirementincome sources and spending patterns more realistically.

In this continuing education session, we review two blog articles: How To Register And Remain Registered With The SEC As An Internet Investment Adviser and DoL's Retirement Security Rule & PTE 2020-02 Amendment: What Advisers Need to Know Now About Giving Rollover Advice After Sept 23, 2024. In the first article, Chris Stanley explains the history of the Internet Adviser Exemption as a pathway to SEC registration and reviews the 2024 amendments to the rule. In the second article, Jacqueline Hummel reviews upcoming changes to the fiduciary standards for advisors providing investment advice to retirement investors under the final version of the Department of Labor's Retirement Security Rule.

You asked the clients for their estate planning documents, and they gave you 62 pages of Wills and trusts. As a financial advisor, you're expected to review the documents to help them understand whether their estate plan aligns with their goals. But it can take hours and hours to read through lengthy documents and translate legalese to English and provide recommendations. However, most estate planning documents have common elements that provide the core information that advisors need to know, and learning them provides a shortcut that allows advisors to review documents more quickly and spot the key issues.

In this continuing education session, we review 2 articles from the Nerd Eye's View: Inspired Discovery: Asking Vision Questions to Focus on Clients' "Ideal Self" and 'ReFire' Instead Of 'Just' Retire: A Framework To Help Clients Plan For Purpose In Retirement. In the first article, Kathleen illustrates how retirement can be reframed not as an end, but as a phase of life centered on fulfillment, self-exploration, and purpose. In the second article, Meghaan Lurtz explains how advisors can restructure discovery meetings to start with vision-oriented questions that encourage ideal-self conversations, moving the meeting from a technical discussion to one that is more inspiring and meaningful for clients.

For many financial advisors, compliance can feel like a regulatory box to check to offer financial advice. But at its core, regulation is designed to protect consumers, and when the intent behind the rules is understood, it becomes easier to follow them effectively. In this session, Chief Financial Planning Nerd Michael Kitces is joined by compliance experts Jim Lundy, Patrick Noel, and Leila Shaver to discuss the practical realities of keeping your firm compliant without compliance becoming an undue burden, what regulators and examiners are really focusing on when it comes to compliance audits, where otherwise well-meaning advisors can still unwittingly get into compliance trouble, and what RIAs need to keep in mind as they seek to create a positive culture of compliance.

This quiz will include a review of the following articles: Implementing Retirement Income Guardrails To Facilitate (The Right) Spending Raises And Spending Cuts, Providing Mortgage Advice In A Higher Interest-Rate Environment: Opportunities For Advisors To Add Value, and How Different Monte Carlo Models Perform In The Real World: Assessing Quality Of Predictiveness In Retirement Income Forecasting Models

Monte Carlo analysis has become the dominant methodology for advisors to analyze retirement income planning strategies. But the way the results of Monte Carlo analysis are framed for clients can invoke different emotional responses and can affect portfolio withdrawal rate decisions. With this in mind, advisors can take advantage of a range of options to improve their use of Monte Carlo analysis, including framing the results as a 'Probability of Adjustment' rather than 'Probability of Success', comparing results using historical scenarios, leveraging regime-based models, and using risk-based guardrails. Using these methods, advisors can potentially provide clients with greater peace of mind regarding their retirement income choices and better help them achieve their specific income and legacy goals.

In this continuing education session, learners will review 2 Nerd Eye's View blog articles: Using Subtrusts To Allow Stretch IRA Treatment For Trusts With Multiple Beneficiaries and Motivating Clients Of All Ages And Life Stages To Stop Delaying Estate Planning. In the first article, Ben Henry-Moreland explains the practical implications of naming a trust a beneficiary of a retirement account and how the Final RMD Regulations have altered the distribution schedule rules for trust beneficiaries. In the second article, In this article, David Haughton, JD, CPWA' explains why clients may be delaying estate planning and ways that clients can help them move forward with a combination of regular communication about the topic, building a basic estate planning foundation, and utilizing the right tools and partners.

For most financial advisors, compliance is simply something you 'have to do' to satisfy regulators while providing financial advice. But in practice, regulations are put in place to protect consumers, and understanding the principles that underlie those regulations can make it easier to adhere to the requirements. In this session, Chief Financial Planning Nerd Michael Kitces is joined by compliance experts Terria Heng, Max Schatzow, and Leila Shaver to discuss what RIAs need to keep in mind as they seek to create a positive culture of compliance, develop and operate within their compliance policies and procedures, and what to watch out for to minimize the risk of audit deficiencies when compliance reviews inevitably come.