Over the telephone, a Primerica Financial Services Ltd. planner speaks in confidence about the real reason he’s leaving the firm. His comments reflect the results from this years Planners’ Report Card.
Of all the Primerica planners who were polled for this year’s survey, not one had a CFP designation. The PFSL planner who wishes to remain anonymous says the firm does not actively promote further education or licensing for its planners. To be fair, however, the firm does not discourage it, either.
“As soon as you jump into the CFP program, you’re in a three-year timeline. You’re taking courses and upgrading knowledge, but that takes the focus away from the corporate agenda, which is to recruit,” the planner says.
This planner, who has been with the firm for three years, is quietly exploring other employment opportunities. He says PFSL is more like a marketing company whose product happens to be financial planning.
But with the proposal that’s been put forth by the Canadian Securities Administrators to license financial planners, he says, as soon as he moves he’ll be getting his CFP.
“If the [CSA licensing] legislation goes through, they’re [PFSL] going to be left in the dust or undergo tremendous strain. The organization will have to catch up to the benchmark, and if it does that its expansion is going to die,” he says.
“Not useful”
When asked whether working toward a CFP designation was in their plans for the future, an average 25.9% of those surveyed said yes. Without Primerica, the numbers changed only slightly — rising to 26.4%. One former Primerica branch manager says in the six-and-a-half years he was employed with the company, he was always told that earning a CFP would not be useful in his line of work.
PFSL does provide learning opportunities at its Primerica Financial Services University.
“Our people are required to go through courses we hold to prepare them for tests so they can be licensed by the provincial government to sell our products,” says Melitta Smole, director, human resources, at Mississauga, Ont.-based Primerica.
She says planners are not required to have, or work toward, a CFP.
According to Jeff Dumanski, senior vice president of marketing: “We’re in favour of increased knowledge and industry stuff, and we will comply with whatever the rule of the day is.”