The financial side of law and order

Membership in the CU is open only to those in the law-enforcement community, their family members and associates.

Getting to know that environment has been both educational and rewarding, Giesbrecht says. Her challenges have included learning new ways to communicate with clients, getting comfortable with the financial needs of a community that ranges widely in age and bonding with the four-legged members of the “K9” unit that sometimes visit the branch with their human caretakers.

Giesbrecht, 57, who is a salaried employee, also appreciates the opportunity to work in a commission-free environment. It gives her the energy and mental space to spend as much time with CU members as is needed to assess their financial situation and to address their specific needs and their family’s needs.

“The time restraints here are not ‘book an appointment every hour [or] every hour and a half’,” Giesbrecht says. “The sales point here is service and doing what’s right.”

The Winnipeg Police Credit Union, established in 1949, has 4,699 members, including city police officers, members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, corrections officers and Canadian National Railway police. As might be expected, people who work in these fields have a particular style when it comes to the “debriefing” that occurs between clients and their advisors in the early stages of their relationship. That style tends to be crisp, disciplined and designed to get to the bottom of a complex situation.

The key to working well with those employed in law enforcement, Giesbrecht says, is to be straightforward and unafraid of answering direct questions.

Indeed, instead of running the meeting, as Giesbrecht normally would do with other clients, she finds that the law-enforcement employees whom she deals with tend to dominate the initial conversation.

“They definitely are interviewing me,” she says. “For me to be anything less than honest and sincere is just suicide.”

Furthermore, that initial interview can run for well over an hour, and clients will often want to come back for a second session to review the material before they are ready to move forward and start working with Giesbrecht.

Once these clients’ trust is gained, however, Giesbrecht has a very close working relationship with her clients: “They’re not just there once a year or when they want something. It’s a true relationship that you build, and it’s extremely rewarding when you get over that [initial] hurdle.”

When offering advice on different financial options, it’s important that the final decision is left with the police officer, Giesbrecht adds. Often, other professionals, such as doctors, whom Giesbrecht has worked with were far less engaged in the decision-making process. But law-enforcement professionals want to know about all the possible choices.

“You do not dictate to them in any shape or form,” says Giesbrecht. “You always give them options. You can give a recommendation, but they always need options.”

Giesbrecht also finds that she has to get her clients thinking more about the long term. Often, she finds, other financial services institutions they have dealt may have encouraged too much short-term spending.

“[Police officers] make a good salary; they have a prestige about them,” she says. “By way of lending, a lot of institutions will just say, ‘Well, here’s money for this. Buy this toy or whatever you like’.”

Giesbrecht helps her clients to start thinking more about their long-term borrowing habits and their future plans.

Often, those decisions deal with what her clients are planning to do when they retire from their current employment. Many officers retire between 50 and 55 years of age, says Giesbrecht, with excellent benefit packages to finance their retirement. These clients still are active, however, and although a minority decide to travel the world, many more end up choosing another form of employment. In that case, Giesbrecht offers advice about how to deal with some of the financial implications of that decision.

Over the course of Giesbrecht’s career, she has done “pretty much the whole gambit” – from personal and commercial lending to investments. She also acts as a mutual fund specialist, offering units in funds for clients of the credit union through its affiliated broker, Credential Asset Management Inc. Although Giesbrecht does not have a financial planning designation, she covers a wide range of services with clients, including RRSPs, RESPs, debt counselling and estate plans.

Giesbrecht also earned the certified professional consultant on aging (CPCA) designation, offered by Burnaby, B.C.-based Age-Friendly Business, this year. She credits the CPCA program with helping her better serve clients who are contemplating retirement.

“It has given me a lot more insight into what should be expected at retirement,” says Giesbrecht. “[The CPCA] just gives me more information, more background, more research material that I can look up for them.”

Giesbrecht also has found that many of her clients lack an estate plan. That’s not what she had expected. Despite being in what is potentially a dangerous line of work, many of her clients haven’t yet addressed many complex, end-of-life issues.

But Giesbrecht has noticed that many officers don’t face the kind of hazards she had assumed they did when she first started working with them. “Yes, they’ve gotten into tussles,” she says, “but, no, none of them have actually had to use their gun.”

But not every client Giesbrecht sees is approaching retirement, and quite a few of her clients are rookies who are new to getting financial advice. While working with this younger group, Giesbrecht often finds that she needs to start with the basics.

“They’re basically coming in and they know nothing,” she says. “They don’t have any idea of what they’re going to be earning, of what the potential is. They have ‘guesstimates,’ but they don’t understand the benefits of starting RRSPs.”

Another aspect of Giesbrecht’s practice that’s somewhat unusual is the casual nature of her client visits: “We’re just about 50 feet from the police shop, head office, so a lot of them can zip in and out. It’s actually quite easy.”

In fact, more than the officers often drop by for a visit. Sometimes, members of the canine unit, who train drug-sniffing dogs, will bring over some new recruits to visit with Giesbrecht and her colleagues.

“They bring in the puppies for us all the time and let us feed them,” Giesbrecht says, “and it’s really, really neat.”

Outside of the office, Giesbrecht looks after two miniature schnauzers, a thoroughbred horse for show jumping and two quarter horses. Giesbrecht’s husband is a grain farmer on land just outside of Winnipeg, and Giesbrecht has been known to do some haying and drive the tractor once in awhile.

© 2013 Investment Executive. All rights reserved.