Ameriprise says a new program it launched in May to provide certification for financial advisors to serve veterans and military families has picked up steam as brokers increasingly cater to client segments beyond just wealth tiers.
The Minneapolis-based financial services firm partnered with Dalton Education, a provider of CFP educational materials, to create what it calls a "first-to-market" Certified Military Financial Advisor online certificate course. The credential will remain exclusively open to financial advisors at Ameriprise until June 2024, according to a
Advisors can expect to spend around 40 to 50 hours on the certificate. Topics include navigating benefit programs for different military divisions, retirement, life and disability insurance, death and survivorship benefits, education benefits, divorce, the VA home loan program, pay, estate planning, healthcare providers and more.
An Ameriprise spokesperson said in an email that as of today, 46 advisors had been certified since the launch and another 78 are in the process.
"We're getting more interest every week," Mike Greene, the senior vice president of Financial Advice and Advisor Business Group at Ameriprise Financial Services, said in an interview. "We just finished some advisor training conferences, and this is one of the most popular topics that advisors were talking about."
Last week, in advance of the Veterans' Day weekend, Raymond James also announced the
Though wealth firms have long grouped clients by their amount of investable assets, employers competing for talent believe offerings like these will appeal to advisors seeking to develop niche areas of expertise.
Greene said Ameriprise brought up this certification, among other opportunities, when recruiting talent and demonstrating its value proposition. "So many people want to focus on this area, and it is a valuable part of our offering," he said of the firm's resources for advising military families.
"We want to help advisors grow their business, and we want to help them do the business the best way possible," he said.
Sean Pearson, one of the first advisors to receive the Ameriprise certification, said in an interview that in-depth trainings like this help him stand out to clients by understanding their needs better — rather than being just a run-of-the-mill advisor using general market news to try to attract clients.
"Every financial advisor in the industry is going to listen to a post-election, 'how does this hit back markets this week?' As a financial advisor and financial planner, I believe it's important that we become at least as much of an expert in our clients as we are in markets, politics and everything else," Pearson said.
Pearson himself is also currently
"That's what the certified military financial advisor program was for me, that opportunity to gain expertise in some of the areas that I didn't experience," Pearson said. Although most of his military clients have the same core financial needs for education and planning that civilians do, "The difference is there's an extra layer of information that you really have to understand to be in the military. There's a value in working with somebody who is an expert in that."
Greene said Ameriprise has around 10,000 advisors around the country, and many live and work in military communities. Ameriprise has its own veteran employee network called VETNET, and the company has been named a military friendly employer by organizations including the military recruitment marketing firm VIQTORY, so it is already known to attract talent from those communities. Advisors may be veterans themselves or have military families among their clients.
"They're definitely interested in this, so on their own, they had to do their homework and get smart about these kinds of benefits" in the past, he said. A few years ago, to provide a resource for these advisors, Ameriprise created a handbook to guide them in advising military families. The certificate is an expansion of that effort, Greene said.
Greene is a veteran himself, having served in active duty until he was 30, he said. When his family members began experiencing health issues likely related to their time in military service, they were uninformed of and unprepared to navigate the wide array of veteran benefits available to them.
"This is really personal," he said.
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"There are different benefits available to active-duty members, to the guard, to the reserve, and it can be dizzying for the average person who's just trying to live their life," Greene said.
When a health issue arises, he said, "often the plan they had in mind is really thrown for a loop. And if we've got access to resources, where we can say, 'hey, we've put a plan in place for this, let's talk about the benefits you have available,' they're in a totally different situation."
