As a fee-only advisor, not taking commissions is central to how you define your services. But here’s the dilemma: you’re sure to serve clients who need life, disability, annuity, and long-term care solutions, which are all commission-based insurance products. So can you find someone who understands how you think as a fiduciary and won’t push products your clients don’t need? Someone who will keep your clients’ best interests in mind like you do?
On this Elementality, Abby interviews Broc Buckles of BC Brokerage, an independent insurance brokerage for the clients of fee-only planners. When looking for insurance products, work with a specialist who understands the fiduciary standard.
Show Notes
BC-Brokers.com
Podcast Transcript
Broc Buckles:
Some that we’ve worked with for a long time introduced to their clients are like figure out the insurance needs, right? [chuckle] Like, I don’t, I don’t…
Abby Morton:
“Here’s your guy, you go talk to Broc, he’ll take care of you. I’ve vetted him. Go see him.” Okay.
Broc Buckles:
Yep. Totally. And that’s everything from, hey, and we’ll talk to him about, hey, how much debt do you need to pay off? What would you want the benefit to look like for a surviving spouse or your disability income insurance? And then some advisors very literally wanna be a part of every single meeting and every part of the process. So we cater to that and whatever they wanna do, we’re happy to just kind of be, there’s kind of this wheel of financial planning and we just like to be really good at being the insurance spoke.
Jordan Haines:
Welcome to Elementality. Each episode, we will explore the challenges and the opportunities faced by financial advisors and how advisors can use elements to grow their business and serve their clients better. We hope you enjoy this episode.
Abby Morton:
Welcome to Elementality everyone. I’m your host today, Abby Morton here with Broc Buckles from BC Brokerage. Welcome Broc.
Broc Buckles:
Thank you. It’s good to be here, Abby.
Abby Morton:
Yeah. I’m so excited to have you on. You are actually a recommendation from a fellow coworker. I was saying you know, who would be an interesting company to interview for our podcast? Who do our listeners need to know about? And he instantly said the BC Brokerage team. So why don’t we start with what is BC brokerage? What do you guys do? How do you support advisors?
Broc Buckles:
Yeah, definitely. And thanks again for having me on. So BC Brokerage is a company that was kind of founded on the belief that the only financial planners need someone and need a company that they can go to and actually trust with their clients’ insurance needs. So I came from a big Fortune 500 company where kind of the mentality was, everybody needs whole life insurance. And it was kind of a cookie cutter solution and I was getting out of it. And so my business partner Peter said, well, before you go too far… Because I was thinking about getting into pharmaceutical sales or something else, he was like, “I have this idea and I’ve talked to these advisors called Fee Only Advisors.” And at the time I was actually like, “What is that?”
Abby Morton:
What does that even mean? [chuckle]
Broc Buckles:
What does that even mean? And he was like, well, it’s these type of advisors, some of them do AUM, some of them do flat fee, but they charge a subscription a lot of times for their service. But what I’ve found in talking to some locally here in Indianapolis is that one of their biggest pain points is how do I get my clients to implement insurance since I don’t do it, without having to worry about them getting the kitchen sink thrown at them, right?
Abby Morton:
Definitely.
Broc Buckles:
And having all this stuff that they don’t need. So if I tell someone that they need a 20-year term for a million dollars, how do I know that that’s what they’re gonna get without all the extra stuff?
Abby Morton:
Yeah.
Broc Buckles:
And so we started BC Brokerage. Kind of started working here locally with advisors and met a lot of great advisors like Thomas Copperman and Justin Castelli and people that are pretty well known in the feeling community. And then I started meeting a lot of people at XYPN and Fee Only Network and a bunch of organizations like that. And so, kind of just built that. So we do life insurance, disability income, annuities and long-term care all across the country in all 50 states.
Abby Morton:
Oh wow. Everywhere. Okay. That’s awesome. And so if an advisor wants, can you offer like any sort of insurance or is there some things you don’t do?
Broc Buckles:
So we don’t do variable products which usually is not an issue because most of the time if someone’s doing a permanent type of insurance, it’s not something that they’re really interested in based on the volatility. Some like it… But yeah, basically anything and that’s personal planning. So that’s a family that needs life insurance for two spouses or all the way up to business planning. So buy-sell agreements, key person insurance. So anything that can kind of be done with those four types of insurance we take care of for people.
Abby Morton:
Okay. Awesome. And so what are, as an advisor, would I send my clients to work with you or do you work through kind of the RIA, the specific advisor that the client is working with? Like how is the relationship to the end client?
Broc Buckles:
Yeah. That’s a good question. So it depends on the advisor’s preference, right?
Abby Morton:
Okay.
Broc Buckles: So some that we’ve worked with for a long time introduced to their clients are like figure out the insurance needs, right? Like, I don’t…
[laughter]
Abby Morton:
“Here’s your guy. You go talk to Broc, he’ll take care of you. I’ve vetted him. Go see him.” Okay.
Broc Buckles:
Yep. Totally. And that’s everything from hey, and we’ll talk to him about, “Hey, how much debt do you need to pay off? What would you want the benefit to look like for a surviving spouse or your disability income insurance?” And then some advisors very literally wanna be a part of every single meeting and every part of the process. So we cater to that and whatever they wanna do, we’re happy to just kind of be, there’s kind of this wheel of financial planning and we just like to be really good at being the insurance spoke. So that’s the way I kind of always sell it to people.
Abby Morton:
Okay. So you do agree with like the advisor is kind of maybe the quarterback or the main relationship and, but advisors don’t do it all, so you’re that insurance arm to help do it?
Broc Buckles:
Totally. And one of the things is, especially, a lot of advisors that are feeling, they don’t come from a traditional broker dealer relationship, so the extent of their knowledge or training is what they learned in the CFP, right? Which is absolutely great, but that means there hasn’t been a ton of real world experience in actually implementing and understanding the complexities of some of the products. And so, we’re just here to support them and make sure that their clients understand, they understand, and it’s a really fun relationship. I kind of say that a lot of times we help them figure it out, but they’re kind of like the doctor and then they write the insurance prescription and as long as it’s compliant, we fill it.
Abby Morton:
Yeah, no, I love that. Tell me like are there other competitors just like you guys, and how do you feel like BC is different from other insurance providers like you?
Broc Buckles:
Yeah. So there are some competitors. It’s super funny because we actually thought we came up with the idea for a while. We were like, we could do this.
Abby Morton:
“We were the first.” [chuckle]
Broc Buckles:
Yeah. And then we started having some conversations. We were like, “Oh, we’re like 20 years late to the party.”
[laughter]
Abby Morton:
I love that.
Broc Buckles:
But we were like, the thing that we’re gonna do and stand out is like be not your like your traditional insurance people that are buttoned up and wear the suit and tie, like we just wanna be normal people that focus very intentionally on client success and high touch. And so I think that you just have to work with people that you feel and that you like, you know, you trust. And the thing that I think that we offer is it’s just more of kind of like almost a family feel, right? So an advisor will call me on my cell phone, they’ll ask me questions. They knew who they’re talking to. They know the point of contact. It’s not like you’re just calling a 1-800 number, getting somebody on the phone and then being bombarded later on with a bunch of like term quotes and questions, right?
Abby Morton:
Yeah.
Broc Buckles:
They know what they’re getting and then we take it an extra step further. So not only do we implement the insurance, but we do things like policy analysis. And I’ve done four of them today. We get on a call, we go through the insurance that the advisor’s kind of working with their client and they say, “Hey, here’s the situation. What are your thoughts on this? What are our options? How do we go through this together?” And so that’s, I think the high touch and we’re pretty tech forward. So we’ve developed the portal. Advisors can track everything that’s going on with their clients. And so I think those are some of the things that advisors have told us make us different from some of the other people that they’ve used.
Abby Morton:
No, that’s great. So it sounds like, a client that has no insurance to a client who has existing insurance policies that you’re trying to understand, do you go as far as like helping them maybe unwind or get out of insurance policies that maybe you and the advisor decide it’s not the best for that client? Like how would something like that go about?
Broc Buckles:
Yeah, totally. And it’s actually a lot more simple than people typically think. If the client’s on the call, I’ll just ask them and the advisor will ask them, do you know why you bought this? And if it’s something like, “Yeah, because it’s my retirement plan,” it’s like, “No, it’s actually a whole life insurance policy and you’re paying for that.”
Abby Morton:
Yeah, yeah.
Broc Buckles:
Then our job is to kind of educate them and then help them understand, if they need it, great, then we’ve solidified and help them understand that it’s good for them. If they don’t, then we’ve just effectively saved them thousands of dollars from paying it down the road and not understanding why they have something. So, yeah, a lot of people had friends that called them in college or when they got out of college that were with a big company and sold them a policy and now that person’s not with the company anymore and they’re just, they’ve been paying for this thing and they don’t know why they have it. So we look at that stuff all the time.
Abby Morton:
Along those same lines, something I always like to ask my guests is like, do you have either an end client or an advisor kind of like testimonial or a story where you feel like you were able to really add value to maybe even give us two stories? Like, can you tell us where you were really able to add value for the advisor and it made a big difference for them? And then maybe you have a story where it was like kind of the end client that you really did help them with?
Broc Buckles:
Yeah, totally. So there was an instance where and this is kind of a personal story, but this was the first, one of the first ones was when I actually had the first, a first disability claim, right? And it was somebody that I knew, but they were, I was working with to get the product and they didn’t necessarily think they wanted it. It was a disability policy, right? And this just kind of goes back to the importance of insurance. This particular individual was really hesitant to do it. And we kind of communicated with them, Hey, this is something that you should probably do. A few months later they actually ended up falling 15 feet, hitting their head.
Abby Morton:
Oh no.
Broc Buckles:
Had a traumatic brain injury. And that policy that we implemented was actually the only thing that kept that person afloat for a little over a year.
Abby Morton:
Oh my gosh.
Broc Buckles:
So that’s where I would say one of the times that I felt the work that we do most heavily impact an individual. And then outside of that there was an individual who was in her early 20s who ran a very successful fitness company that was putting, I think, a little over a hundred thousand dollars a year into a policy. And we looked at it, we dissected it and we were basically like, “Do you know why you have this?” And she was like, “I think because a person told me I should.” And it’s like, you’re making a hundred thousand dollar commitment because somebody told you you should. And that’s how misinformation things get out there. So obviously we got her out of it, she’s doing other things. She’s being more, much more effective with the financial planners that she’s doing with her advisor now. But that’s one of those things. And then just every single day, the fact that we get to help people implement things that we hope they never use, but if they do, they’re gonna be really glad that they have it. So it’s, it can, people ask me all the time, is it kind of morbid talking about disability and death all the time? I’m like, “Yeah, I guess you can kind of become desensitized to anything.” But, but we really feel that the work that we do is super impactful.
Abby Morton:
It is true though, like just the importance of insurance and in the even just, I think, the importance of a financial planner. I often think about that too. I think, financial planning is something people don’t always think that you need, right? Like I can just DIY, I can do it myself, right? But you… When you frame it in the context of like, I’ve saved you, so much money of your lifetime and I’ve given you that peace of mind with the insurance that you have and you hear those stories of people actually needing to use their disability policy or whatever it may be. Like there are those stories that happen, like it does happen real in life and you’re…
Broc Buckles:
Totally.
Abby Morton:
Able to help with that. So I love that. What are maybe some common like mistakes that you see other advisors making and like, let’s give them some tips on maybe how they can not make those mistakes. Like what would you recommend?
Broc Buckles:
Yeah, I would say a lot of advisors, there’s a fine line between pushing too hard and not pushing hard enough, right?
Abby Morton:
Yeah. Yeah.
Broc Buckles:
And I think that one of the things that can really help an advisor and their client’s overall financial plan in regards to insurance is having the conviction to say, Hey, look, this is something that’s not gonna be fun to pay for. It’s not gonna be like buying a new house or new car watching your investment accounts grow, but with this disability policy, if something happens, this is literally gonna be the thing that keeps the rest of your financial plan afloat because you need income and money to keep everything going. And so having the conviction to actually tell clients that, and when they get a little bit of feedback, I feel like a lot of the times it’s like, well, I don’t wanna seem like I’m selling the insurance. I don’t wanna seem like I’m doing this, but just as strict as you would be on the budgeting aspect or saying, “Hey Tim, you need to stop spending so much money or else you’re gonna run out of it.”
Abby Morton:
Yeah.
Broc Buckles:
Having that same conviction behind the insurance and getting to the point to where you can apply enough pressure for the client to act on it, but not too much pressure to where you’re being offensive. So I think, that’s something that a lot of advisors kind of struggle with, especially advisors that don’t come from the broker dealer world because they kind of train you to do that. So I think that’s something that we’ve gotten a lot of compliments on just, “Hey, I appreciate the way that you guys went about this. And this has actually helped me a lot in my practice to understand how you talk to clients about it.” And ultimately, it’s better for them because they know their clients are covered. And now they can worry about all the other stuff that they have to worry about on a daily basis.
Abby Morton:
No, really. I definitely, definitely see that. Tell me, since you brought up the example of disability, do you believe that literally every client needs a disability policy? Or do you feel like there’s some that in certain situations they don’t?
Broc Buckles:
Yeah. I hesitate to say anybody ever needs everything, right?
Abby Morton:
Okay. Yeah, yeah.
Broc Buckles:
Certainly, I mean, if you would have enough money if something happened, and regardless of how you… If you inherited the money or you’ve sold a business or you’ve done all of this stuff, and if something happened, you’re just, you’re gonna be fine, right? You’ve got so much money sitting in the bank that you just don’t have to worry about it. You probably don’t need a disability policy.
Abby Morton:
You’re self-insured at that point, right? I think is what I’ve heard people say.
Broc Buckles:
Exactly. But if you rely on your ability to go to work, everybody always brings up the example of a doctor. Sometimes they have a lot of debt themselves through school. They very literally rely on their ability to use their hands on a daily basis to do what they do. Then you probably do, right? It’s no different than life insurance. A lot of people would say everybody needs whole life insurance. Not necessarily true. There’s situations that you certainly do, estate planning, special needs planning, some long-term care products, if you completely run out of other options, but not everybody needs it. So if anybody’s ever telling you that this one solution is the right answer for everyone, get up and walk out of that conversation would be my advice. [chuckle]
Abby Morton:
That’s helpful. I’ve thought about like even just for me myself, let’s talk about me specifically. I sit at a desk all day. I use my brain to work at a computer and I’m thinking, fall off a ladder, I break my back or I break my leg or my arm. I’m thinking I would be able to still do my job because my brain is still functioning. It might be hard and it might be different. And so I’ve often thought maybe I don’t need a disability policy, but in the past, I’ve been an advisor. I’ve worked with dentists who use their hands all day and do have to bend over to do the work that they do. So it’s like… In that aspect to me, I’m thinking it does seem like there are occupations in specifically disability that need it more than maybe other occupations. Is that a smart way as an advisor to think about things like that?
Broc Buckles:
You can certainly and you could absolutely argue that some occupations are more risky. But the thing that I always tell people is three out of four claims that we see are actually due to illness, not injury. So it’s things that we can’t control, so there’s mental illness, there’s cancer, there’s musculoskeletal disorders. It’s usually actually not a car crash or falling off of a ladder.
Abby Morton:
Interesting.
Broc Buckles:
And that’s what everybody always thinks about when it comes to disability. But it’s actually a common misconception that actually only accounts for about one in four of the claims that we see. So I always tell people if… Because a lot of people have group policies, right? Oftentimes they’re 50, 60%. But if their employer paid, that money’s coming to you and it’s taxable. So if you couldn’t live on 45% of your income and feel good about it, then you should probably think about supplementing it or if you have nothing at all and you rely on your ability to earn income to pay for things and you don’t have a trust fund or you didn’t inherit a bunch of money or you didn’t sell a business for a bunch of money, it’s probably something that you should be thinking about.
Abby Morton:
Okay. Yeah. See, I just learned a lot right there in just that little interaction. So even if a lot of, let’s say a lot of clients, I think, can work with W-2, sorry, a lot of advisors work with W-2 clients who probably have those group policies. Are those even policies that you’ll kind of do an analysis and look at as well to help them understand if they need additional coverage outside of that?
Broc Buckles:
Yeah, absolutely. And a lot of people do.
Abby Morton:
Okay, so anything?
Broc Buckles:
Yeah, yeah, totally. Anything from business owners, entrepreneurs to W-2 to 1099 commissioned, anybody that you can think of, we help with disability policies. So we like to help people understand, hey, if… And there’s a lot of fine print language too. So there’s different definitions in disability policies like own-occupation, modified Own OCC, any-Own OCC or any OCC, sorry, not any Own OCC. And so just helping people understand this is what you do have through work. And sometimes there’s finer print too. So it’s not 60% of your income, it’s your income up to a maximum of $5000 benefit. So that’s where people also need to know the fine print and kind of the language of their disability policy. So we help people understand that all the time.
Abby Morton:
Okay. No, that’s great. All right. Well, I think that really covers it. The final question I always like to or I like to kind of hit with or understand is just like basically how you’re priced. Are advisors paying you a fee to work with you kind of on an ongoing basis or do you mostly get paid through the products that you’re selling, the insurance products that you’re selling, then clients, how does that work?
Broc Buckles:
Yeah, that’s a good question. That’s an idea that a bunch of, it’s funny that sometimes advisors have actually said, why don’t you charge us for this stuff? Because you’re looking at a bunch of our policies and saving us a bunch of time.
Abby Morton:
Well, that’s what I’m thinking. If I’m coming to you, I’m just thinking, I don’t even have to think. I remember trying to like analyze an insurance policy for a client. And it’s like, this is so outside of my wheelhouse and what I do. Like there’s just so many details. It’s so nuanced, all the different things that you have to know that just feels like I already need to know all this other stuff on top of needing to cover all these policies as well.
Broc Buckles:
Right, yeah. But it was something that we said we had to make a hard decision on it. And we just said, Hey, we’re not gonna charge the advisor. We rely on the feeling community and the advisors to do what we do. And we appreciate them for that reason. And so our way of making sure that we’re offering top-notch service is to make sure that they know that they’re heard and we’re always here to help educate and break things down and just give them their time back. They’ve got other things they need to be worried about. So if I can take a 60-page illustration and we can break it down and give them bullet points about it, and then they can go on their day and have a productive conversation with the client, that’s great. So we are strictly compensated if something’s implemented and we’re paid by the insurance carrier. And there’s no difference in price to where if you were to go directly to them or get the added expertise of what our firm offers.
Abby Morton:
Well, awesome. That’s even better. Like even more of an incentive for us as advisors to reach out to you guys, right?
Broc Buckles:
Totally.
Abby Morton:
Awesome. So if we wanted to find you guys, where do we go? How would an advisor get connected with you?
Broc Buckles:
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So bc-brokerage is the website. I’m on LinkedIn, Broc Buckles on Twitter. I think Broc_Buckles. And then my email is broc@bc-brokers.com. Feel free to reach out anytime.
Abby Morton:
Love it. Look at that personal connection. You’re allowing everyone to reach out to you. I love that. [chuckle]
Broc Buckles:
Yeah. Absolutely.
Abby Morton:
Alright, any final words for our listeners today?
Broc Buckles:
No, if you’re a fee-only planner and we haven’t got the chance to meet you, we would absolutely love to. And to all of you that we already work with that could be listening, we appreciate you more than you know. So thank you so much for the opportunity to do work for you.
Abby Morton:
Awesome. Thank you so much for your time today, Broc.
Broc Buckles:
Thank you.
Abby Morton:
Next time on Elementality.
Reese Harper:
When writing’s at its best, it’s actually when it’s gone through a really, really, really shitty first draft where it’s like super garbage and you didn’t hold back emotionally when you were drafting. You dumped it all onto the page. You said everything that was in your heart, everything in your mind, everything that you’re feeling, and you knew it was safe because you weren’t going to share it with anyone. You just dumped it all out there. The only way you can really get the best nuggets are when you know no one is gonna necessarily see what you just wrote.
Abby Morton:
Interesting, I like that. I never thought about it in that aspect.
Reese Harper:
Yeah. Just like this first thing, no one’s gonna see it. No one’s gonna read it, and you don’t have to share it. But your goal is to get the emotional dump just all the way out. So you’re like, “I said it. There’s nothing I didn’t say.”
Abby Morton:
To find out more about Elements, go to getelements.com/demo. Elementality’s executive producers are Reese Harper and Carl Richards. Elementality is produced by Tad Henderson and directed by Abby Morton. Have a good one.