A Conversation With … Deb Coulter

Tell me more about the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors.
It started out in 1890 as the National Association of Life Underwriters. It was contained to be life insurance work. About 20 years ago, they changed it to include all insurance agents and all lines of insurance.

The mission is to educate and train. We operate under a very high standard of ethics, so that’s one of the things we are most proud of. The training we get and the programs NAIFA sponsors foster that, such as the Leadership in Life Institute. That’s a leadership training program started in the year 2000 by some national NAIFA leaders in order to train local leaders to go though chairs or being on local boards. It has grown and grown.

In Springfield, we have the largest number of alumni in the state. The moderator and state chair are here in Springfield. We highly support this and almost our whole board are LILI graduates.

Is there a focus other than professional development?
The other thing is advocacy. We raised $1.8 billion nationwide for the last major election for federal candidates. Some people don’t agree with the lobbyist system, but it’s what we have. It’s how we have to compete.

What is NAIFA lobbying for?
We want to make sure laws and bills that are passed follow through. We have had people from our local group help write law in certain areas. We have some pretty big people in Springfield who are very involved in the state and federal areana. We want to make the members aware and raise money for our political action committee. IFAPAC is one of the largest in the industry – the Insurance and Financial Advisors Political Action Committee. That’s a big deal. We have to stay active in that arena.

Are you watching any bills in the Missouri legislature this session?
It’s been kind of quiet in Jeff City here recently. Nationally, of course, there is the Department of Labor’s fiduciary rule. There are a lot of opinions on that. We try to stay as neutral as possible because in our world, we have fee-based advisers and commission-based advisers. NAIFA has not been neutral, but they haven’t been heavy on committing efforts. They are making sure the law works and are on top of it all the time watching. If it goes through the way it is, it’s going to be a huge change for everybody. Correct wording is key.

How many members are in the Springfield chapter?
We have 105, but there over 900 members total in Missouri and 41,000 nationwide. That’s a lot of people and that’s why we are powerful in lobbying. I think it still leans heavier on the financial end because that’s where the focus has been, but we have a lot of multiline agents.

We are really working hard on recruiting younger members. Last year was the first year ever NAIFA offered free memberships to new advisers or agents only three years in the business. We had quite a few come in, so our job now is to keep them engaged and get them involved. We have to find where their passions are and get them locked in.

What are you goals as president?
One of the things we accomplished last year was to win a national award of excellence. NAIFA has different levels, but the platinum is the highest and we achieved that last year. We are working on doing that again this year. There were only 37 local associations nationwide who earned that last year. It’s a point system and a great model to build a great association. By hitting that, we hit a lot of other benchmarks along the way: membership and training, speakers, continuing education.