To share consumer-friendly versions of these materials, click on the link at the end of each article to send to your clients or prospects via our sister blog, The Link Between.

Learning From Experience: Bett’s Story

Everyone loves a story with a happy ending, even if it’s rife with tragedy and family drama. But happy ending or not, if somewhere in the story, a loved one is lost, we see the toll the loss can take on the relationships of family survivors. True in fiction. True in life.

You play a pivotal role in encouraging your clients to plan ahead wisely and intentionally so they can ease rather than contribute to the toll their passing will take on the relationships of those they love. And you can never overemphasize the importance of proper estate planning.

Share Bett’s story with your clients to help them understand and remember the importance of documenting and communicating their final intentions.  Continue reading “Learning From Experience: Bett’s Story” →

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Learning From Experience: Bett’s Story

Work-Life Balance: Tipping the Mortality Scale

Last time in this space, we discussed how physical or emotional stress affects the human heart. This time, we will focus on why maintaining a favorable balance between a commitment to our jobs and the need to prioritize our lives outside of the workplace is both a life-affirming and possible life-saving necessity.

Let’s start by looking back to the early 1990’s, when researchers in Japan started to study and report on a phenomenon where it appeared ostensibly healthy, middle-aged, mostly men, started to die suddenly. The term coined for the cause of death in this group was “karoshi”, meaning death from overwork. The common thread running through these cases was a history of chronically long work weeks, logging in at 60 hours and often more. The cause of death was disturbing in its’ repetition, most often heart disease, stroke or suicide (1).

More recently, and perhaps due to the pandemic and a growing body of knowledge increasingly difficult to ignore, there is renewed interest in the burden and toll of an unhealthy work life. Continue reading “Work-Life Balance: Tipping the Mortality Scale” →

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Work-Life Balance: Tipping the Mortality Scale

Social Media Platforms – What You Need to Know

You’re a successful Advisor but want to promote and continue to grow your business online – smart move, count us in! However, there are just so many social media platforms, how do you know which one is right for you and your business?

There are indeed more than a few and they’re all slightly different, but all are excellent modern marketing tools and with a little research, you can decide which one (or two or three!) are a good fit for you and your brand.

Recently, LIMRA published a study asking Generation Y (also called millennials) who they engage for financial advice. They found that 90% of those surveyed said that they would NOT seek financial advice from their parents’ Advisors because they “are not relevant” (1). Ouch. But what does it mean to be “relevant”? Well, if you want to reach the next generation of wealth, you need to meet them where they are – and that place is on social media. Continue reading “Social Media Platforms – What You Need to Know” →

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Social Media Platforms – What You Need to Know

Savings Growth Calculator

The ability of our “Savings Growth” calculator to compare two savings strategies can be useful during your client discussions on what to do with excess cash. Your clients can also use it to see the impact of increasing their savings, even by just a little. Walk through this multi-purpose tool or share it with your clients to stimulate your next discussion on finances. Continue reading “Savings Growth Calculator” →

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Savings Growth Calculator

Preserving Your Client’s Memories with the help of STEP

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Our life’s memories deserve consideration just as much as our financial legacies do.  Have you taken the opportunity to talk to your clients about how to protect their social media accounts and their digital assets?

Most social media platforms have terms and conditions making these accounts private for security purposes and making it difficult, if not all out impossible, for family members to retrieve these accounts after their loved ones have passed on. The good news is that social media providers have put tools in place so that your clients can decide in advance how they would like their loved ones to access these accounts when they are gone.

STEP (the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners) has made the process even easier for your client to safeguard and share their memories with future generations by providing useful guides to help update their account settings and how to open conversations with their family and friends about the importance of preserving these digital memories. Be sure to share these guides with your clients: Continue reading “Preserving Your Client’s Memories with the help of STEP” →

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Resources to help preserve your memories!

INFOclip: Mortgage Protection

Does your client own their own home? Do they have mortgage protection in place and can they continue to make loan payments in the case of a significant decrease in their income?

For many Canadians, purchasing a home is an important life milestone that can evoke both great joy and financial responsibility. Unfortunately, unexpected life events such as the disability, illness and even death of an income earner can make paying a mortgage that much more difficult, especially if they don’t have the proper protection in place to safeguard their family’s income.

Share this video with your client to show them how purchasing personal insurance, via a trusted advisor (that’s you!), can offer them and their families peace of mind with the protection and flexibility they need during difficult times to keep them on track with their mortgage payments. Continue reading “INFOclip: Mortgage Protection” →

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INFOclip: Mortgage Protection

Building Connections Through Direct Response Marketing… More than just Social Media

Today, it’s no longer about those old, templated letters or phone dialing campaigns that… let’s be honest… were highly time consuming and largely ineffective in getting the attention of your clients. Social media has changed the way we promote and do business – all with better results at a fraction of the cost. So, why should you join the social media party and how can you make an impact through direct response marketing? Continue reading “Building Connections Through Direct Response Marketing… More than just Social Media” →

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Building Connections Through Direct Response Marketing… More than just Social Media

Will the Money Last?

Help your clients calculate and compare scenarios for how long their savings will last when they start using it as income. Share the “Will the Money Last” calculator with them today.

And, for a more comprehensive review of your clients optimized retirement income cash flows and withdrawal strategy comparisons use the Cascades tool available to PPI Advisors through the Stratosphere suite of tools. Continue reading “Will the Money Last?” →

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Will the Money Last?

Corporate Owned Life Insurance and Beneficiary Designations

Many of your business-owner clients have corporate owned life insurance – an excellent and tax efficient way for your client to achieve their estate and succession planning goals. However, to avoid unintended tax consequences, it is critical that the beneficiary designations of the corporate owned policies be reviewed. Where the corporation is the owner and payor of the life insurance, the corporation (or a subsidiary of the corporation) needs to be the beneficiary of the life insurance – not the shareholder’s estate or members of the shareholder’s family! Why? Well, when corporate funds are used to provide personal benefits to shareholders and their family members, a taxable shareholder benefit will result, and the corporation does not get a deduction for the benefit. This results in double tax for your client! Continue reading “Corporate Owned Life Insurance and Beneficiary Designations” →

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Corporate Owned Life Insurance - Watch Those Beneficiary Designations!