SEC's "Regulation Best Interest" Effort Provides New Opportunity to Protect Retirement Savers
Washington, D.C. (August 3, 2018) — The American Council of Life Insurers’ (ACLI) stressed in comments on the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) “Regulation Best Interest” that life insurers strongly support protections serving the best interest of customers.
The SEC’s proposed “Reg. BI,” which would strengthen existing rules on the standard of conduct for broker-dealers, provides a new opportunity to further protect retirement savers. It is a vastly superior approach to helping people obtain retirement security than the prescriptive, and now vacated, Department of Labor (DOL) regulation.
“Retirement savers deserve standards ensuring continued access to a wide variety of retirement products, retirement savings information and related financial guidance from financial professionals acting in their best interest. Regulation Best Interest achieves this important goal,” said ACLI Vice President & Chief Counsel, Securities, Carl Wilkerson in its written submission.
Reg BI achieves this goal by taking a neutral approach—not favoring one retirement product or financial professionals’ compensation arrangement over another. The result is enhanced consumer choice in retirement planning.
ACLI also lauds the SEC’s leadership in developing a coordinated federal and state regulatory approach to a uniform best interest standard.
“The SEC’s inclusive outreach to state regulators and the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) as partners in the development of a best interest standard is an essential element of effective oversight and regulation,” Mr. Wilkerson said.
ACLI also submitted comments to the SEC on its Form CRS—Customer Relationship Summary—and on the SEC’s Investment Adviser Proposed Interpretation.
To learn more, visit acli.com and our blog, ACLI Perspectives, at acli.com/perspectives.
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