As we enter Q2 of 2021, COVID-19 continues to take an unimaginable toll across America and around the world. The pandemic has heightened people’s anxieties around their physical, emotional, and financial health. NAIFA has partnered with Life Happens and LIMRA in promotion of their Help Protect Our Families campaign, a national effort to shed light on Americans who are at risk due to lack of appropriate insurance and financial guidance.

Robert Miller, MS, MA, is currently serving as Secretary/Treasurer for NAIFA-New York and has been a loyal NAIFA member since 1983. Since retired, he practiced out of his firm, Miller-Pomerantz where he specialized in corporate selling in New York City.

Vinny Dallo, ChFC, CLU, CLTC, LUTCF, serves as President-Elect for NAIFA- New York and has been a loyal NAIFA member since 2005. He practices with Kappan Financial, LLC, in Fairport, NY, where he specializes in personal financial planning.

Vinny’s introduction to the financial services industry is rather unique. He was initially brought on to the MetLife team as a call center manager. He excelled in the position after creating a subscription service that called MetLife advisors’ current clients to strengthen their existing relationships. For a minimal price, advisors both new and established, could sign up for these “warm appointments” that ultimately lead to stronger advisor-client relationships and increased production. Vinny’s initial job as a call center manager enabled him to see the ins-and-outs of a career as a financial advisor with MetLife before pursuing it himself.

Later, the top recruiter in his office questioned why he wasn’t pursuing a career as an advisor, as it was the “perfect fit for him.” That prompted Vinny to pursue a long-term professional goal to have a “helpful impact on other people.”  He soon found his new path gave him a strong sense of fulfillment. He  even enjoyed reading through the dense, sometimes overly complicated, financial portfolios of his clients that they felt to be daunting.

New NAIFA member Gerard “Jerry” St-Cyr resides in Long Branch, N.J., and is with Eagle Securities, a subsidiary of New York Life. Jerry is not only new to the association, but he is also relatively new to the industry. Before his career in financial services, he built an impressive resume featuring leadership roles in a collection of successful businesses and philanthropic endeavors and organizations. Previously, Jerry was the CEO of a dental startup company, as well as the Director of Sales and sommelier for a wine import company, Select Fine Wines. He is also the author of Womanity and My Wine Guide. He is the founder of the non-profit organization benefiting at-risk women, WOMANITY4WISE.

NAIFA has partnered with six other trade groups in the insurance and financial services space to provide content for the Help Protect Our Families program. The program is designed to help insurance carriers and distribution partners understand the increased need for life insurance products by American families, particularly in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.

It is not too early to start preparing for the 2021 Insure Your Love Campaign. Life Happens will launch February’s Insure Your Love (IYL) campaign during the “month of love” because the basic motivation behind the purchase of life insurance is love.

2020 has provided some of the best examples of the power of permanent life insurance. In this Advisor Today article, David Szeremet, with Ohio National, shares a few of the ways in which your clients can leverage the power of permanent life insurance to address a wide range of financial challenges.

Hybrid life insurance policies with long-term-care benefits can be an important part of a limited and extended care plan for many consumers, Jon Voegele, MBA, ChFC, CLU, chair of Life Happens and a long-time NAIFA member told journalist Cameron Huddleston for an article in Forbes magazine.

Scott Brennan is a life insurance industry legend. He is a MassMutual agent, former president of the Million Dollar Round Table, 2016 recipient of the John Newton Russell Memorial Award, and a NAIFA member since 1978. He refers to himself, however, as the “Chief Attitude Officer” and delivered an inspirational and motivational message to his industry colleagues during NAIFA’s April 30 online Town Hall meeting.

These last couple of weeks have obviously been new for all of us, but I successfully did something in late March and again Mid-April that I'm already deriving some benefits from.