State Farm and Edward Jones React to the Fiduciary Rule

By Mack Bekeza

With April 10th, 2017 quickly approaching, a large number of investment firms and insurance agencies are scrambling to comply with the DOL fiduciary regulation. However, some firms believe they have found a solution to the upcoming rule. Knowing that their representatives cannot put their clients’ interest first, State Farm and Edward Jones have announced plans to prevent their employees from selling mutual funds when the new fiduciary rule takes effect next April.

So how will they be able to do this without significantly reducing their revenue? State Farm plans to only sell and service their mutual funds, variable products, and tax-qualified bank deposit products by a self-directed call center, as opposed to having their agents sell the products directly. In other words, State Farm still wants their customers to purchase these products while being able to avoid liability if the product turns out not being in a customer’s best interest.

Edward Jones’s solution involves curtailing retirement savers’ access to mutual funds in commission based accounts and lowering their investment minimums. Basically, Edward Jones is planning to shift completely into the fee only side of compensation for retirement accounts and allow more investors to move their money to them.

Although it will be interesting to see how State Farm’s self-directed call center will play out, at least they have a strategy to deal with the upcoming rule. As for Edward Jones, going completely towards the fee-only side for retirement accounts is a good move as they are eliminating a major conflict of interest for recommending certain products.

Although there are a number of firms still trying to strategize to comply with the DOL rule, we are still waiting to hear plans of other advisers that sell investments that may not be in their clients’ best interest. However, we will attempt to keep you posted as more firms finalize their strategies.

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