Hub financial is teaming up with Empire Life Insurance Co. to establish an insurance advisor training school, with the goal of bringing new blood into the insurance industry to act as successors to older advisors.

“The launch will take place over the next month or so,” says John Lutrin, Vancouver-based executive vice president of Hub Financial.

It not unusual to offer broker training or seek out young recruits, Lutrin says. But a national managing general agency and an insurance company joining forces to provide advisor training with succession planning as the long-term goal is a new initiative.

“The intention is to get advisors thinking about their own succession plans in the context of potentially identifying and grooming young entrants to the industry, thereby securing their own succession objectives,” Lutrin says.

This initiative will also fill a gap that has developed since demutualization and the end of the captive agent system.

Insurance companies have gotten away from their traditional role of recruiting and training. Meanwhile, Lutrin says, “Most MGAs are localized in scope. With Empire, we can make this a Canada-wide program.”

The broker school will take the form of a five-day “boot camp” in a classroom format, running once a quarter, he says.

The training sessions will involve practical sales training; provision of sales tools, product and Empire illustration software training; as well as one-day training sessions with Empire’s tax and estate planning and account management teams, covering more advanced sales topics. Hub Financial will provide ongoing product and marketing support.

The curriculum will be available at www.hubfinancial.com.

To qualify for the training school, the advisor must be “brand new” to the industry or contracted with Hub Financial for less than six months. The applicant cannot have been previously life-licensed, unless it was in the capacity of marketing assistant.