CONFERENCES

Advisors Should Evaluate Annuities

I read with interest the April FA article "Conservatism Rules" and, similar to the advisors quoted, over the past several years we and our clients better understand the need to balance risk and return.

We have used some of the concepts mentioned in the article.

I was somewhat surprised that a discussion of variable annuities was not mentioned in the context of providing some additional downside protection when constructing an investment portfolio.

While there are certainly pros and cons that financial advisors consider about annuities, the reason we have clients consider them is for the guarantees that are now available, which under the right circumstances are worth the difference in expenses when compared to other arrangements.

This isn‚t meant to be a review of the different options available today or to recommend one form of guarantee over another, but to say that these programs need to be considered when reviewing available options with a client.

Steve Fraidstern

Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.

Clearing Up Confusion

Your report in the Frontline News section of your April 2004 Financial Advisor magazine, titled "Advisor Group Says Come One, Come All," reflects critical confusion that calls for needed clarifications.

You mistakenly state, "The effort by the IAQFP places it at odds with the CFP Board of Standards and the Financial Planning Association, both of which have embarked on a campaign to make the board‚s CFP certification the unifying designation for financial planning practitioners." What the CFP Board and the FPA have actually embarked on is to make the CFP designation the exclusive and only designation of financial planning and not the "unifying designation."

We oppose their approach for the reason that it disenfranchises 60%, or more than 60,000 equally qualified financial planners bearing the designations QFP, ChFC, PFS, MSFS and MS (the latter two with a concentrated study in Financial Planning).

The confusion reflected in your reporting is not at all different from what a less informed public encounters as it traverses the "alphabet soup" of financial services designations in search of financial planners. It was to end this confusion, and stop the disenfranchisement created by the CFP Board and FPA‚s refusal to recognize anyone other than CFP certificants as financial planners, that in 2003 IAQFP.org (http://www.IAQFP.org) introduced the QFP, the Qualified Financial Planner designation. That action began unification of the financial planning profession, and did so under one universal identifier that was created to include all qualifying designations of the financial planning profession, while at the same time lessening the confusion for a much deserving public. The QFP designation thereby unifies all duly credentialed and qualified financial planners, while remaining exclusive to the overall field and profession of financial planning. Further, the QFP designation helps to distinguish for the public and professionals alike the field of financial planning as a discipline unto itself, distinct from the broader and more generalized field of financial services.

One other area of confusion expressed in your reporting is found in your statement, "Others question whether the QFP is a real designation since it has no unique qualifications but simply requires one to earn another designation." To the contrary, the designation also requires that one adhere to what many feel is the profession‚s highest code of ethics and professional conduct, while also requiring of the QFP continuing education that spans the full spectrum of financial planning subject matter. Furthermore, those QFPs who are also IAQFP members have added standards that subject them to oversight by the IAQFP Ethics Committee & Board, and who are in turn provided an exclusive Web site listing in the QFP Registry of Qualified Financial Planners where the public, too, can both verify and easily locate them.

Thank you for your coverage of these important matters and for allowing us the opportunity to make these clarifications.

Paul M. League, QFP, CFP, Chairman,

International Association Of Qualified Financial Planners, www.IAQFP.org

Please e-mail letters to Editor-In-Chief Evan Simonoff at esimonoff@cfpnonline.com or fax them to (732) 450-8477. Letters also may be mailed to his attention at Financial Advisor Magazine, 600 Broad St., Second Floor, Shrewsbury, N.J. 07702.