LTCI Insider: Dinner Through New Eyes

I'm standing on the terrace outside the dining room at a hotel near Naples, Florida.

Nothing unusual, except that I'm wearing a blindfold.

The dinner to kick-off the Financial Planning Association's FPA Retreat was described in the schedule as "Dining in the Dark." I had visualized a small ballroom with candles on the table, and very low lighting.

I was wrong.

We are divided into groups of 10, told to put on blindfolds, and then to hold onto the right shoulder of the person in front of us.

I grab the shoulder of Andrew Sivertsen — of The Planning Center in Moline, Iowa — and hang on as we are led into the dining area and helped to a seat.

Holding on to me is Alexandra Armstrong from Sarasota, Florida.

Dinner starts with a salad. Try eating salad when you can't see.

Then we are given the main course. (The mashed potatoes are easy to eat. Prime rib, not so easy.)

The Organizers' Thinking

This totally unusual experience and other events held during the conference helped attendees to "see" things differently. The retreat organizers' idea was to challenge our thinking, provide learning experiences, and help us meet with others to get ideas and strategies to grow our business.

The blindfold experience definitely set the tone. The dinner speaker — Mark Valenziano — had unexpectedly gone blind at age 15.

He related his situation to the goal of financial planners, who try to help clients prepare for the unexpected.

The dinner experience definitely forged connections.

Andrew and I worked together to figure out how to eat our salad and even to find the bread. (It also turned out that Andrew was the vice chair of the FPA Retreat Task Force, so he knew this blindfold experience was coming.)

The FPA Retreat

The FPA held the four-day event earlier this month.

The conference offered three keynote presentations and 24 break-out sessions, and it attracted 238 attendees, according to Ben Lewis, the FPA chief communications officer.

One session, presented by Mark Paulson of Allianz Investment Management and Tim Rembowski of DPL Financial Partners, covered use of annuities to enhance retirement portfolios.

The speakers talked about how clients can use annuities to increase returns while maintaining the same level of risk in retirement. They noted that they are seeing a trend towards clients' retirement age dropping to age 62.

Julie Fortin of NorthStar Financial Services and Marlis Jansen of Graddha gave a presentation on the lessons neuroscience has for financial advisors. One of their suggestions for advisors, based on neuroscience research: Spend about 75% of the time listening and 25% of the time talking.

Annalee Kruger, president of Care Right, ran a workshop on helping a client develop an aging plan. Her presentation included tips on identifying signs that indicate that your client might have dementia or is having trouble getting by at home.

She provided interesting statistics relating to caregivers and how providing care affects assets under management.

63% are helping fund their aging parent's needs.
42% reduce their contributions to their own savings/retirement.

In other words, caregivers who are helping to support loved ones, because of problems with the loved ones' aging planning, are probably not funding their own retirement accounts as well as they could be.

Margie Barrie, an agent with ACSIA Partners, has been writing the LTCI Insider column since 2000. She is the author of two books and a frequent conference speaker.