Insurable Interest Canadian Insurance Blog

The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged Vista Financial Advisors LLC and the firm’s co-owner and chief compliance officer, Ruben Cedrick Williams, with inflating the firm’s assets under management on Form ADV. Why it matters: Firms cannot misrepresent their AUM to the SEC or to the public. The case: According to the complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, Vista and Williams made material misrepresentations in Vista’s Forms ADV for 2022 and 2023. The firm falsely claimed in its 2022 Form ADV filing that Vista had $10 billion in regulatory assets under management, or RAUM. While Vista represented in its Form ADV filed on April 14, 2022, that it had $10 billion in RAUM, “it subsequently failed to provide the Commission with evidence to corroborate this statement,” the order states. Vista has also “ignored repeated requests from the Commission staff to substantiate, correct, and/or withdraw the statement,” the order says, adding that “to the extent that Vista had any RAUM, such assets did not remotely approach the $10 billion in RAUM represented in the Form ADV.” Rather than undertaking any corrective measures in response to the Commission’s inquiries, on April 5, 2023, Vista filed...

H.R. 5535 H.R. 5535 would restrict federal agencies’ ability to ask insurers for information without eliminating all data calls. The bill would require federal agencies that want data to start by seeing if they could get the information from public sources, state insurance regulators or other federal agencies, such as the IRS, that have an existing process for getting data from insurers. Once the federal agencies obtained the data, they would have to abide by any confidentiality rules governing the entities that originally collected it. If the Federal Insurance Office or federal bank regulators needed insurance company data that was not available from data vendors, state regulators or other federal agencies, they would have to put the requests for information through a formal Paperwork Reduction Act review process. The Paperwork Reduction Act requires many federal agencies to post draft information collection forms and give affected entities a chance to comment on the forms. H.R. 5535 was introduced by Rep. Scott Fitzgerald, R-Wis. It has five Republican co-sponsors and no Democratic co-sponsors. The bill is under the jurisdiction of the House Financial Services Committee and the House Agriculture Committee. The US Capitol building in Washington. (Image: Bloomberg)

A top Medicare official predicts that a tax bill could keep the program solvent for at least 75 years — if the bill raises as much money as supporters hope it will. Paul Spitalnic, chief actuary of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the federal agency that runs Medicare, made that prediction in an analysis of the possible impact of S. 1174, the Medicare and Social Security Fair Share Act. What It Means Agents and advisors who work with high-income clients may have to pay more attention to S. 1174, now that an agency has suggested that implementing it could keep Medicare solvent. The Medicare Part A Trust Fund Medicare trustees now predict the Medicare Part A hospitalization program could empty out a trust fund that helps pay the claims by 2031. At that point, tax revenue and premium revenue would cover about 89% of projected Medicare Part A bills. The Net Investment Income Tax Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., wants to raise money to shore up Medicare by increasing the 3.8% net investment income tax. The tax affects the investment earnings of single taxpayers with modified adjusted gross income of at least $200,000 and couples with MAGI of at least $250,000 that...

1. Social Security and Medicare choices interact in important ways. One common area of confusion among clients and advisors is the link between Medicare and Social Security, Mantell said. To be clear, Social Security and Medicare are distinct programs serving older Americans, but they have an important commonality. That is, the Social Security Administration handles enrollment for Medicare Parts A and B. For most people, Medicare eligibility starts at age 65, Mantell explained. If a client is receiving Social Security retirement benefits at that time, the SSA will send them a Medicare enrollment package at the start of their initial enrollment period, which begins three months before the month they turn 65. If a client has not yet filed for Social Security benefits, however, they will need to apply for Medicare directly on their own. A client can do so any time during the initial enrollment period, Mantell said. Credit: Adobe Stock

Tom Halloran, Cetera Wealth Partners president, is being promoted to serve as the new head of the firm’s independent advisor channel, replacing Brett Harrison, Cetera Advisors CEO and president, who is leaving the company after more than 25 years, a Cetera spokesperson said Friday. Halloran was Voya Financial Advisors president when Cetera Financial Group said in 2021 that it was acquiring the independent financial planning channel of insurer Voya Financial. He became Cetera Wealth Partners president after the acquisition. Before joining Voya, he was managing director, head of product and acquisition at Merrill Edge from 2010-2013, according to his LinkedIn profile. “After more than 25 years of leadership, commitment and innovation at Cetera and its predecessor firms, Brett Harrison will be pursuing a new chapter in his career as he considers his long-term future and retirement,” the Cetera spokesperson told ThinkAdvisor. After Harrison steps down, Halloran will “assume an expanded role over the Independent Advisor channel,” which includes Cetera Advisors and Cetera Wealth Partners, the spokesperson said. “Tom is well suited to guide the team into the future and will play a key role in executing Cetera’s continued growth strategy.”