Valmark Reworks Life Sales Tool for N.Y. Best Interest Era

The questionnaire helps connect the life insurance policy benefits shown in the policy performance illustration with the policy contract features. That information can help play an important role in educating clients and improving coverage recommendations, Valmark said.

Valmark said it will be working with life insurers to help financial advisors use the questionnaire with all life insurers and all products.

Valmark will also be encouraging financial services firms and advisors to make more use of its systems for monitoring the performance of in-force life insurance policies.

That system can help advisors serve clients' interests by determining whether life insurance policies are performing the way the policies were originally designed to perform, according to Valmark.

Both the questionnaire and the policy monitoring system can help financial services firms and advisors document the recommendations they are making, Valmark said.

Larry Rybka, chairman of Valmark, said in a statement about the firm's process update that working to do a better job of putting the client first should be good for business as well as for compliance.

"We've done this not because of a minimum regulatory requirement, but because we see it as both an ethical obligation and competitive advantage to make better recommendations and provide a service for monitoring polices after they are placed," Rybka said.

— Read How a Financial Services Distributor Sees the New Life Accounting Rules, on ThinkAdvisor.

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