Fall 2011 Dakota Advisor

What a whirlwind first few months as State President. It has all been very good and rewarding which has made it an enjoyable time.

One of my goals is for every local association and the state to receive the BOBO award and so I am trying to make it as easy as possible for that to be accomplished for all. To help each association, a template was e mailed to each president as to what has to be done for their association to achieve the BOBO award status. One of those requirements is holding ALC meetings. Realizing that everyone is very busy and to save time and expense of traveling we held our ALC’s for Membership, Professional Development, APIC, IFAPAC and Government Relations via conference calls. Those were held in July and August.

Monthly calls are held with all the association presidents so we can communicate with one another and share ideas. If anyone has ideas they would like us to discuss, please contact your president.

One of the perks of being state president is being invited to speak at local associations meeting. So far I have had the privilege of speaking at Minot, Grand Forks and Fargo and am scheduled for the others. Thank you for allowing me to visit. Out of those association meetings we have signed up 4 new NAIFA members. So we are on our way!!!

There were 6 of us attending the National Convention in Washington DC. I was a bit hesitant flying to the Capitol City as it was the weekend of the 10^th anniversary of 911 but all was well. The Hotel we stayed at had security placed in various areas so I felt very safe. It was just different having to show your room key to security guards standing at the elevator. But we all were fine and had a great time.

The convention was filled with superb keynote speakers i.e Colin Powell, Keni Thomas (who was involved in the Black Hawk Down in Somolia in 1993) and Chief Richard Picciotto from the NYFD who was in the North Tower when it collapsed. Beyond those speakers, we had educational workshops filled with ideas and material but the best part was the advocacy aspect and what is going on in Washington.

If you don’t think that membership is important or that our voice counts then you need to start reading the Gov. Alerts. The Class Act has been shelved (Whew!!! Good move.) and that the Dept of Labor announced they are going to withdraw their current proposal to redefine “ fiduciary”. That came after 1,000 NAIFA members met with nearly 400 Congressional offices during the National convention. It isn’t about us, it is about our clients. We need to continue to be advocates for them. To have a louder voice we need members so please recruit and show them that their career depends on their involvement even if it just means paying dues.

If you have any questions, concerns or ideas please don’t hesitate to call or e mail as I am open to listening. This is your association and career and we are all in this together.

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Visit collegesave4u.com/naifa
or call 1.866.SAVE.529.

Just remember our name:
College SAVE

If your client is not a North Dakota taxpayer, consider before investing whether their or the designated beneficiary’s home state offers any state tax or other benefits that are only available for investments in such state’s qualified tuition program.

For more information about North Dakota’s College SAVE Plan, call 1-866-SAVE-529 (1-866-728-3529), or visit www.collegesave4u.com to obtain a Plan Disclosure Statement. Investment objectives, risks, charges, expenses, and other important information are included in the Plan Disclosure Statement; read and consider it carefully before investing. Upromise Investments, Inc., Distributor and Underwriter.

The College SAVE Plan is a 529 Plan established by the State of North Dakota. Bank of North Dakota acts as trustee of the College SAVE Trust and is responsible for administering the Plan. Upromise Investments, Inc. and Upromise Investment Advisors, LLC serve as the Plan Manager and Recordkeeping and Servicing Agent, respectively, with overall responsibility for the day-to-day operations, including marketing and distribution of the Plan. The Vanguard Group, Inc., provides underlying investments for the Plan. The Plan’s Portfolios, although they invest in mutual funds, are not mutual funds. Units of the Portfolios are municipal fund securities and the value of units will vary with market conditions. Investment returns are not guaranteed, and you could lose money by investing in the Plan.

Not FDIC Insured. No Bank, State, or Federal Guarantee. May Lose Vvalue.

Do you cautiously step in to test the water or head straight for the diving board??

By attending our “Life Guards on Duty” NAIFA-ND Convention at the Ramada Inn in Grand Forks May 2^nd to the 4th, 2012 we will provide the tools to help you stay afloat of your business in these sinking times.

NAIFA - North Valley (Grand Forks) is working hard to get you a lineup of speakers that will take you from a cautious step to the mighty cannonball. So get your suits ready, mark the dates and get ready to bring home the gold!!

The NAIFA-North Valley association is hosting the Insurance Commissioner Forum which will provide CE credits. The Forum will be held on Monday, October 10^th 1:30-4:30 at the Hilton Garden Inn in Grand Forks. Our September meeting we were delighted to have Pat Saltsman talk to us about her trip to the National Convention and provide CE credit for us. We continue working on our plans for the convention in May. We hope to see you at the Forum.

We had our first meeting and had Pat Saltsman speak to us about the importance of what it means to be a NAIFA member. Our group is excited on 2011-12 and are set on growing our membership numbers this year. More than ever it is important to be an active Advisory. As Pat says, "If you aren't at the table, you are on the menu." Fargo/Moorhead local is making strides to have membership recruitments and IFAPAC drives as this upcoming year may be one of the most important in our history. We do not want to be on the sidelines, but we want to be in the game. Leaders are among us and leaders are always looking for opportunities to shape our future.

MSAIFA meets the third Monday of each month at the Bismarck Elks club with lunch beginning @ 11:30am. In our summer and September board meetings we worked on filling our slate of monthly speakers and meeting sponsors. We still have a couple openings but I think we’re off to a good start on filling those slots. At our September meeting we decided to participate in the National Membership Campaign. I’d encourage all of the chapters to consider this Campaign as it seems to consist mostly of things we do anyway…we just have to formalize and document activities a bit more than we maybe usually do. Have a great fall!

The Minot Association is off to a great start. We invited Pat Saltsman to attend our September membership meeting and she gave an outstanding presentation on the history of NAIFA. She also conducted 4 hours of CE on Partnership Training. Thanks Pat. Our board is up and running and we are looking forward to a great year. We are starting a YAT program headed by Kevin Burckhard. The YATs will meet one hour before our regular membership meeting where they will get some super training. In October we host our Annual Legislative Forum where members of our State Legislature come and speak with the members. This year we have invited the staffs of our Congressmen to attend as well. We are looking forward to a successful year.

Medicare Marketing Reminders and Expectations for Medicare Advantage & Medicare Prescription Drug Plans for 2011/2012:

Marketing of the 2012 Medicare Advantage and Medicare Prescription Drug plans has already started, and starting this year, open enrollment begins and ends earlier, October 15-December 7, 2011. During this time, members can change their Medicare health Plan or prescription drug coverage for 2012. The following reminders will help ensure agents/brokers have a safe and compliant marketing environment.

· Proactively take measures to protect Medicare members by ensuring that members are not misled. Special attention should be focused on vulnerable members and beneficiaries impacted by plan non-renewals.

· Ensure your organization does not employ any type of pressure tactic that requires Medicare beneficiaries to provide their contact or personal information at marketing sales events or when they are calling for general information.

· Ensure your organization provides clear and accurate information related to your product’s drug benefit, including information related to costs, plan formularies, and the coverage gap.

· Appointments that are scheduled with a beneficiary, regardless of the intent, are considered sales appointments and must comply with the requirements specified in section 70.9 of the Medicare Marketing Guidelines regarding individual appointments. You may provide educational content in addition to plan specific information during an individual appointment.

· Other than the CMS Online Enrollment Center, the only online enrollment mechanism that you may make available is via the plan sponsor’s website.

If you have questions, you are advised to contact the plan with which you work. Below are helpful Medicare links.

The Interim Health Care Reform Review Committee will hold one more meeting, on October 20-21, before the Special Legislative Session which begins on November 7th.

The latest plan amendments approved at their October 6th meeting include the following items of interest and concern for us:
1. There is to be one insurance agent/broker on the Health Care Exchange Board.
2. The Board is to set up their own procedures for dealing with any decisions to be made where a Board Member may have a conflict of interest.
3. There is to be one insurance agent/broker on the Health Care Exchange Advisory Committee.
4. Chairman Keiser and Representative Kasper presented a proposal where there would be one navigator to provide for the promotion, education and to facilitate enrollment in Health Care Exchange approved plans. If this proposal works insurance agents would not be designated as navigators, but would be the only ones able to enroll consumers in Health Care Plans offered either inside or outside of the exchange.
This proposal will need considerable support from our association and is by no means a done deal. When we get a draft of the proposal we will make it available to our membership and coordinate contacts with each of the committee members. We encourage you to contact committee members to encourage support of this proposal. Members of the Committee are:

We have had a busy quarter. We started out with telephonic APIC training on July 21, 2011. We asked at that time that each local submit an Annual APIC Plan to me by the end of September. If you have not done, so please get it done. We also provided our contact list for state legislators. We would like you to update that list, but wait until the State Legislature approves the new redistricting plan. We had a meeting with Senator Hoeven in Fargo in July. Thanks to those that participated. In September I attended the National Convention where I participated in classes on Political Involvement and Government Relations. I provided a copy of that report to the State President and State Exec. If anyone wants a copy, send me an email. On Wednesday September 14, 2011, five NAIFA-ND members attending the convention visited our 3 members on congress on capital hill. My thanks go out to Pat Saltsman, Elaine Fremling, Nancy Buechler, and Keith Phillips. Issues included Fiduciary Standard, Tax Reform, and Role of the Agent.

The Membership conference call held on 09/07/2011 was poorly attended. I neglected to send out a reminder until the day before so I will take the blame for this call.

I am out of town the first two Tuesdays in October. I would like to conduct the October membership conference call on Tuesday October 18^th at 8:30 am central time. Again the number to call is 712-432-0111 and the access code is 168709#.

The last agenda we had talked about some of the hot topics affecting our business of we don’t pay attention such as not being paid for IRAs (this has been delayed until next year) fiduciary standards which would affect those of us with retirement plan sponsors. Contacting legislatures at state and national levels was effective, but we need to stay on the forefront and not let anything slip by us when politicians propose changes.

I also e-mailed to member chairs the membership application form. We should keep one or two of these apps handy at all times and continue trying to recruit members….remember there may be safety in numbers and we need more members! I also included a colorful recruiting hand out to show advantages of joining NAIFA for a relatively small monthly investment.

During our next conference call I will try to squeeze more ideas out of the call and utilize some new tactics to raise our standards bar and success ratio of new members. Remember any member can contribute ideas to grow our membership. Please feel free to contact any of our membership chairs and share these ideas.

Most of you have heard of LILI, some of you have taken LILI and many of you are curious about LILI. NAIFA-ND is gearing up for another LILI class that will be held in Jamestown and tentatively scheduled to start in Nov. We currently have about 9 NAIFA members who have shown interest in taking the class. This years class will be moderated by Renae Haug from Bismarck.

This class is a great way to grow your business, become a better leader and most importantly become a better person. If you have questions, want more details or have the desire to enroll contact myself, Renae or Nancy in the State Office. You can also go to the NAIFA website and get information regarding the class. The application is available online on the NAIFA-ND website.

Enrolling and taking LILI is much more than a class. It is an experience.

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