In this week's edition

The disciplinary case of a life agent in Alberta who sold a policy on an insured dying in hospital is notable for the gaps it reveals in training and compliance. The managing general agency involved was World Financial Group. Given misrepresentation during the policy application process, the insurer wouldn’t consider the death claim. An advisor emailed with a question about the story that likely arose for other readers: Was the life agent’s commission recovered or charged back? Those details were requested but not obtained when investigating for the story.

Proposed changes to the capital gains tax, effective next week on June 25, have no doubt kept financial and tax professionals busy over the past couple of months. Amid criticism about the changes, there is a potential upside: Claiming a capital gains reserve on the sale of an asset may be more beneficial. Reporter Rudy Mezzetta provides the details.

From assessing cash-flow and liquidity needs to navigating market volatility, retirement income involves a lot of moving parts. This week, industry professionals shared best practices for retirement income planning, including stress testing clients’ plans.

Asset management giant Fidelity Investments is launching Fidelity Wealth, a new wealth management platform targeted at retiring advisors. Fidelity Wealth’s managing director said the dual-registered firm would serve as an alternative for advisors who are uncomfortable with the options they currently have for transitioning their books. As a retiring advisor, your book would be transitioned to a mid-career Fidelity Wealth advisor, which the firm plans to hire. Whether this is a viable solution for retiring advisors remains to be seen, and we’ll keep you updated on any developments. In the meantime, do you have succession challenges you’d like addressed? Let me know in an email.

We opened this newsletter with life agent training, and we’ll close it with that topic too. A new designation is available from the Canadian Institute of Financial Planning: the registered life insurance specialist (RLIS). In Ontario, the RLIS is awaiting regulatory approval as a credential for use of the protected “financial advisor” title. Get the details as well as an update on the CIFP’s claim against FP Canada, filed in court in April. The claim arose following controversy over the CIFP’s Chartered Financial Planner designation, approved as a credential for use of “financial planner” in the province. We’ll be following title regulation for you as it rolls out across the country.