NAIFA will be a presenter at a meeting tomorrow of theCompliance & Ethics Forum for Life Insurers (CEFLI)Advisory Committee. CEFLI is a professional trade association of the legal and compliance staff for insurance carriers, broker-dealers, and federal and state regulators. The Advisory Committee specifically is a forum for life insurers, industry trade associations, and regulators from the SEC and FINRA to discuss trending issues that affect CEFLI members.

NAIFA will brief the Committee on the efforts of the North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA), the trade group that represents the state securities commissions, to produce a model regulation requiring continuing education (CE) training for investment advisor representatives.  NASAA argues that investment advisor representatives, unlike insurance producers and registered representatives, are not subject to a mandatory CE program. State securities regulators believe that a model law or regulation requiring IAR CE training is a necessary measure to close what regulators view as a consumer protection gap. 

NAIFA has historically supported CE requirements, provided that the training is reasonable and not excessive. For instance, NAIFA continues to be supportive of the current FINRA CE requirements and state-level CE programs for insurance producers. NAIFA will evaluate the NASAA proposal when published and respond with any concerns. This item, and other issues, will be a topic of discussion with CEFLI representatives.