Dave Patriarche says he was shocked when he realized there are a number of financial advisors out there who simply have no desire to share how they reach their sales and personal financial goals.
Undaunted, Patriarche, owner of Mainstay Insurance, founded the Canadian Group Insurance Brokers (CGIB), and about a decade ago started gathering together like-minded advisors to discuss issues, new trends and developments in the industry at morning breakfast seminars. He believed then and still does now that financial advisors, like other professionals, absorb more when they’re in a group setting.
About 40 advisors showed up at first, growing to about 180 – that is, until a couple of years ago when the numbers trickled down to 60-90 a meeting.
When it all started, there were Ontario meetings in Markham, Ottawa, Ajax, Oakville, Cambridge and Newmarket as well as Halifax, but then many of the groups shut down for lack of attendance.
It was when he received the go-ahead for CE credits that the crowds started coming to his breakfasts in an atmosphere where Patriarche wanted advisors to not just listen to an expert, but discuss, disagree and be interactive with the speakers.
“It’s advisors’ responsibility to educate themselves, their responsibility to specialize and become a professional,” says Patriarche. “They can’t blame an insurance company or anyone else for not learning about a product or a theme. A lot of advisors think it’s not their job to learn more than what the product information tells them.”
Starting this March-April, CGIB is moving away from its five half-day courses to three full-day seminars.
Fewer specialists
He gives a number of reasons why numbers have fallen so dramatically. First, he believes there are fewer specialists out there, unlike the group insurance advisors he draws to his meetings. Now, he says, the industry is pushing toward generalists – selling everything from insurance to all kinds of investments.
“I think people are a little lackadaisical about [educating themselves],” he says. “They don’t think they need to invest anything into their own development... Everything they learned to get their licence – that was when their learning stopped. But when you think about other professionals like doctors, lawyers, engineers, if you’re not keeping up you are putting your clients and your own business at risk.”
There’s also ongoing amalgamation, with firms like Winnipeg-based People Corp., MGAs like HUB and consulting firms such as Gallagher buying up many of their smaller competitors.
On top of that, the median age of life insurance advisors in Canada is 60, closer to the end of their career than they are at the beginning. Many, suggests Patriarche, are just coasting now until they retire.
Most of the big insurers don’t provide a lot of technical information, although smaller firms such as Medavie and Empire Life do, as well as some third-party administrators, suggests Patriarche.
A number of people interviewed by Insurance Journal for this article, said the apparent exception to that rule is Manulife, which uses the Manulife CE Centre to provide educational and licensing needs for financial advisors. Manulife says that in 2016, 14,676 advisors used the centre, growing to 23,097 by last year. With 200 online courses, it also supports 1,500 in-person events every year.
“The Manulife CE Centre credits the growth in advisor participation in recent years with our obsession with providing value to our advisors,” the centre said in an email. “We make getting CE credits easy and aim to make completing CE requirements something that our advisors enjoy.”
Later this year, Manulife will offer podcasts and a new video series, as well as podcasts as accredited content and accredited video clips from Manulife presenters.
The dwindling numbers in live classrooms isn’t affecting just CGIB. Jason Watt, CEO and instructor at Business Career College in Edmonton is also feeling the changes of time.
The college has had live classrooms in New Westminster, B.C., Calgary, Edmonton and Mississauga, ON in the past, but now it holds live training only in the Edmonton classroom space, which sits empty 340 days a year.
In 2010, the Business Career College had 201 people attend a live classroom for CE training in Edmonton, with a total of six different events over the course of a year. By 2018 the number stood at 183 advisors in five two-day conferences of live sessions.
While the live session numbers are down slightly, Watt says advisors appear to be more amenable these days to taking computer training.
Online learning
“I’m not being critical, but as people are willing to take continuing education online it does draw people out of the live classroom,” says Watt.
There are many advisors in Alberta that use the College’s online resources, which include both video content and podcast content for CE credits. And he notes older advisors in Alberta are more likely to continue in the live classrooms because they offer different topics and believe in the value of classroom interaction, says Watt.
While some advisors prefer to look for a Mastermind Group or a coaching group to get this contact, many of these groups don’t offer formal CE credits, he notes.
As for the future of educational training for advisors, Watt believes online and other forms of distributed learning will become more common, especially for advisors just coming into the business.
“If the very first thing you did when you came into the business was [use] an online course for your life insurance licence…you’re set up to do the rest of your education for the rest of your life online.”
In the Atlantic provinces, no CE credits are yet required to hold a life insurance licence or a mutual fund licence, says Shayne Connolly, head of the Advocis Atlantic School in Mill River Resort, PEI. (However, the Mutual Fund Dealers Association of Canada has published for comment proposed CE requirements for mutual fund advisors across Canada, a move that is likely to come into force next year or 2022. Quebec already has requirements for CE credits for mutual fund and life insurance advisors.) Out East, those who have attained their CFP designations or are members of the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada (IIROC) also must meet those organizations’ CE requirements.
At the one-day-a-year Advocis Atlantic School, delegate count had been relatively consistent for a number of years until recently, when numbers dropped to about 70 from 90, says Connolly.
While he hasn’t researched the reason for the drop, Connolly suggests the lack of requirements for CE credits in the province (so far), the growth of online courses and an aging financial advisor workforce may well be the reasons.
Advocis requirements
Advocis requires its members to complete a minimum 15 hours per year of structured learning for CE credits, which includes completing certain licensing and designation program courses, plus a maximum of 15 hours a year of “informal” activity like teaching, researching and writing articles, self-study and participation on industry task forces and committees.
To accomplish this, members can use self-study programs, online and chapter and national events as well as Advocis Schools.
At IFSE, the educational arm of The Investment Funds Institute of Canada (IFIC), all courses are offered and delivered online.
Some, like the Canadian Investment Funds Course (CIFC), is a webinar series where an instructor goes through the material and answers questions. Students can just slot themselves into a session as part of that series with an instructor, says Christina Ashmore, IFSE’s managing director.
IFSE frequently works with academic partners such as universities or colleges that offer courses in a classroom setting. “A lot of times though, those particular classes are part of a bigger program like a business administration program or financial services program where there are courses inside the programs and that’s usually offered in a classroom setting,” says Ashmore.
But she says when offering courses to the general public, classrooms just don’t seem to get the same traction as when they deliver a course through a webinar series or online. “[This way] they can do it from the comfort of their own home and then we can cover a whole country.”
Also with classroom-style courses, cost and time away from work can be a consideration, including the cost of the course, but also driving, food and parking, says Ashmore. Online provides more flexibility.
FP Canada has about 6,500 approved CE courses, with about 40% of them offered virtually and 60% still in-person, says Joan Yudelson, vice president, Professional Practice at the FP Canada Institute.
More flexibility
While Yudelson says she believes there is value in a group setting, industry firms and professionals of all stripes are demanding online learning, mainly because of the flexibility it provides.
“We have place for both,” she says. “But it is clear that demand for online learning has been increasing over time.”
FP Canada launched an online ethics course at the end of January that is a kind of hybrid model of both online and discussions with others.
Specific skillsets
CFPs are also looking for specific skillsets, such as more information on holistic financial planning and specific demographic groups, as well as proficiencies to help motivate clients, says Yudelson.
While online seems to be the way for many advisors, Patriarche is adamant that CGIB will not go that route. “If CGIB with people won’t work, then it will end in 2021 or 2022,” he says.
“I have really learned everything from this group…it allows me to see experiences far beyond what I would see from my own client base. All that giving, sharing, discussing at break time, before and after, all that has made me grow to a much more well-rounded group specialist. It’s because of giving and getting from so many people. To see the group disappear and the next generation not get that much opportunity would be a problem.”
