More than 850 NAIFA agents and advisors descended on Capitol Hill May 23 to lobby lawmakers and staffers.
By any measure, the leadership and lobbyists at the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors (NAIFA) are on a winning streak when it comes to major policy victories.
NAIFA’s recent wins include two major conquests that will have lasting ramifications for advisors and investors alike: The group, along with a cadre of co-plaintiffs, victoriously sued the U.S. Department of Labor to overturn the fiduciary rule. In addition, NAIFA’s seven professional lobbyists and 150 agent/advisor member “lobbyists” (flown into Washington, D.C., at a critical juncture to meet with their lawmakers and staffs) triumphantly killed “rothification” of retirement plan contributions early in the writing of the massive tax reform package. Rothification would have severely limited the tax deduction investors take when they make retirement plan contributions.
“It was a challenging, but rewarding year,” Diane Boyle, NAIFA’s senior vice president of government relations, told Financial Advisor magazine. “Our advocacy efforts work because we leverage staff, constituent lobbyists and all three branches of government to protect our members and their customers.”
By strategically deploying its seven professional lobbyists (and an annual lobbying budget of $4.6 million), a cadre of some 1,000 vocal agent and advisor “lobbyists” who are willing to fly in on a moment’s notice, and well-placed political contributions (NAIFA contributed $3.2 million to political candidates between 2016 and first quarter 2018), the association of 30,000 is able to take a seat at just about every critical policy debate on personal finance and regulation in the country.
Energized by its defeat of the DOL rule, NAIFA is now honing its attention on the Securities and Exchange Commission’s “best-interest” proposal -- especially the customer relationship disclosure document that will limit who can and can’t use the titles “advisor and adviser.”
“We are still analyzing the almost 1,000 pages, and we’ll certainly comment on it, but one area where we have an issue already is the limit on who can use the term ‘advisor,’” Boyle said. “We want to make sure that the intent is to provide investors with clarity and enhanced, not diminished, advice.”
It should come as no surprise that the association would gear up to battle a proposed SEC “titles” prohibition that ties use of the term “advisor/adviser” to SEC registration and explicit fiduciary duty, like the DOL rule the group just NAIFA just defeated. For one, “advisor” is in the association’s very name.