The Financial Services Institute announced Monday its FSI CoveredAdvisor Program, which offers FSI member firms and their advisors access to guaranteed-issue long-term disability and term life insurance.
The program, which is underwritten by Guardian, is available to all 100 FSI advisor member firms and their advisors. Advisor support staffers would be offered a slightly different plan. FSI is the program's plan sponsor.
"Health care reform has standardized the availability of health insurance," said Chris Paulitz, senior vice president of membership and marketing, during a Monday morning press briefing at FSI's second annual Advisor Summit in Washington. Industry research as well as FSI membership surveys show that while "most advisors advise their clients to get long-term disability [coverage], most advisors don't think they can afford it because their only access is to individual or small group plans."
Indeed, Dale Brown, FSI's president and CEO, added during his opening remarks at the event that "long-term disability rates are incredibly expensive." Under the FSI CoveredAdvisor program, "we're offering true large group long-term disability coverage that's not available on the open market."
The new offering, Brown said, "is not taking anything away from our advocacy. We're methodically rolling it out firm by firm," with the first set of firms enrolling in September. However, Brown told advisor attendees that they didn't have to wait for their firm's designated month to join, stating that they could sign up for coverage at the summit.
Paulitz said that FSI will be "unveiling" the insurance program through next July, with "a few firms" enrolling each month. Since unveiling the program three weeks ago, he said, the "response has been overwhelming." Open enrollment for the first group of firms ends Oct. 3.
