January 10, 2017

Sircon Blog 2016: A Year in Review

By: Sydney Beaudreault

Compliance and keeping up with regulatory change isn't easy. That's why this year, the Sircon blog features several posts on best practices for specific areas of the industry to ensure we're sharing our knowledge for all areas of the market! Here are just a few of our favorites.

Spotlight

Anatomy of a Regulatory Change, A series

A regulatory change generates an extensive web of dependent and inter-connected changes across all the stakeholders involved in getting, keeping, and verifying agents, advisors, adjusters, and other licensed individuals are authorized to sell or service insurance or securities. Even a seemingly small change can have a large ripple effect of changes on the industry. In this six part series, you will find ways to be proactive, compliance best practices, ways to respond and process changes, data impacts and more from some of the industry's most knowledgeable experts!

Like what you see? Contact me for a chance to win a FREE COPY of the Anatomy of a Regulatory Change eBook.

Guest bloggers

10 Questions with the NAIC's Chief Technology Officer, Scott Morris

Scott Morris recently joined the NAIC as Chief Technology Officer and with this new vigor, the NAIC has several plans and initiatives to come. Click here to see what we learned from Scott on his background, his key learnings and challenges thus far, the NAIC's top 3 technology initiatives over the next 18 months, and changes you should be prepared for.

Carriers

Adjuster Licensing Best Practices: A series

Similar to producer licensing, some carriers choose to have their adjusters manage their own licensing or others have a designated person or team to manage adjuster credentials. However, due to these intricacies and risks of adjuster compliance, we've recently seen a boom in carriers seeking ways to more efficiently manage their adjuster licenses. So, in order to help you better understand the ins and outs of adjuster licensing, our Sircon Licensing and Registration Services experts came together to share best practices to comply. Click here to learn more!

Summer '16 Carrier Update Series

What is a producer sales authorization? To have a break-proof compliance practices, you must be aware of the importance of maintaining accurate producer credentials and relationships. Read more on how you can ensure that your producers are authorized to sell, with the new Sircon for Carriers automation enhancements.

Events

ACORD2016 Conference Recap: What's to come on L&A automation

As many of you may be aware, members of the Association for Cooperative Operations Research and Development, more simply known as ACORD, work tirelessly to improve data exchange and workflows within the insurance industry. By developing electronic standards and standardized forms, ACORD aims to assist carriers and distributors alike in streamlining their business processes, including those related to compliance. Learn more about ACORD and the conference from, Vertafore's VP of Product Management, Tim Owen, and discover how ACORD aims to reach those goals and the future of license and appointment automation.

NetVU2016

If you haven't heard of NetVU, it is the industry largest user group and as a Sircon customer, you have access to all of its various benefits! This year, over 200 Sircon solutions users attended the conference and over 30 product experts were available to give one on one trainings to those users. Click here to see what you missed!

Regulatory Updates

Industry Update: NAIC Spring Meetings

This spring, NAIC hosted two national conferences: the NAIC Spring 2016 National Meeting in New Orleans at the beginning of April and the Insurance Summit in Kansas City May 16 - 20. The Insurance Summit is a new event that combines separate conferences, including the E-Reg Conference, TechEx, Financial Summit, Market Regulation Summit, PIO Forum, CIPR Symposium and Continuing Legal Education Seminar. Click here to learn more about major themes for both events including cybersecurity and uniformity.

Mid-2016 Regulatory Round Up

As usual around mid- year, we saw a LOT of law regulatory changes and to help your team better understand those changes, we compiled a list of those updates, trends that you should be aware of, things to look for, and more! Check out this post to make sure you didn't miss out on any of these important updates.

Q3 Regulatory Recap: What's New and What's to Come

Click here to catch up on state by state changes, updates on NARAB II, the CLAIM Act, Fiduciary Rule things we're watching and pending legislations as of Q3.

Securities

The Clash, the DOL Fiduciary Rule, & the New Administration

With passing of the DOL Fiduciary Rule, thought leaders in the industry are urging broker-dealers and other firms to take an active approach on changing their compliance culture and updating their compensation models NOW despite its open opposition and promises for repeal. We're here to help you decide what is right for you and your business. Read here

Are you prepared for the FINRA Rule 2210 amendment?

As you may already be aware, the SEC has approved FINRAs proposal for an amendment to Rule 2210 – Communications with the Public, but with implementation deadlines nearing, we address a few questions that we've heard from our customers to help prepare you! Read here

Fiduciary Rule: Why the industry remains uneasy

The fiduciary rule has been the topic of the financial services industry for quite some time, but now that it has been approved, industry concerns continue to increase. Although many financial advisors currently provide client best interest investment advice, some believe that the current suitability standard may not be enough. Learn more about the rule, enforcement plans, potential unintentional costs, and additional compliance requirements that you should be prepared for!

Events

IRI Ops & Tech Conference Recap, featuring IRI's Jim Young

Connect, collaborate, execute. These were the three themes of the Insured Retirement Institute (IRI) Operations & Technology Conference—a forum for operations and technology members within the annuity community. "Change is inevitable, technology is inexorable, and we need to achieve a fully digital user experience for our industry to remain relevant," says IRI's VP of Operations and Technology, Jim Young. Discover IRI's approach for achieving a digital experience including key initiatives for the DOL Fiduciary Rule, 1035 Replacement Straight through Processing (STP) & e-Signatures, and License & Appointment Automation.

The Buzz from FINRA Conference 2016

The FINRA Annual Conference is an excellent place for expanding your understanding of securities regulations and how to implement them at your firm. FINRA is there to share their initiatives, recommend best practices, and explain the ongoing changes to the securities regulatory landscape. Learn more on topics that were discussed including the DOL Fiduciary Rule, Outside Business Activities (OBAs), support for advisors who also sell insurance, and the dichotomy of front end vs. back end usage of technology.

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