Skip to main content

You are here

Advertisement

NAIFA Member Survey Claims Big Disruptions from Fiduciary Rule

A new survey finds that nearly two-thirds of adviser-members of the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors (NAIFA) believe the Labor Department’s fiduciary rule either will, or probably will, force them to stop serving some or all of their clients.

NAIFA, which, along with the American Council of Life Insurers, has filed suit seeking to overturn the fiduciary regulation, said that its survey of 1,167 NAIFA members also found that 16% will no longer provide any retirement plan products or services to individual or business clients.

NAIFA claims that lower- and middle-income clients could be hit especially hard by implementation of the rule, with about a quarter of the advisers (24.2%) reporting they will lose all of their lower- and middle-income clients, and another 41.3% saying they will lose some. An additional 17% said that they do not yet know how the rule will affect their ability to serve clients who are not wealthy.

Nearly half (49.5%) of the advisers surveyed expect their compliance costs to go up significantly, and an additional 29% expect costs to rise modestly. Roughly 1 in 10 (11%) aren’t sure.

Nearly all of the advisers foresee the rule having an impact on their ability to serve clients, with more than half (56.7%) saying the effects will be entirely negative and 27.3% saying they would be mixed. Three percent said the effects are likely to be entirely positive.

Advertisement