As I’ve mentioned before, the Department of Labor is now taking another go at improving advice standards for retirement accounts.  I put a quick letter together to give some reasons why I think it’s important to have high standards for advice in this context.

Although written to the Department of Labor, I tried to put the letter together in a way that would help journalists and others understand some of the critical issues facing Labor and the need to put some real protections in place.

One of the talking points often deployed by the industry here is that people should understand that they are in a sales environment and not rely overmuch on the insurance producer deploying every known psychological trick to generate trust.  In reality, many people–particularly older Americans do not understand that the advice is not free.  

My sense is that the rulemaking will probable go through and then we’ll find out how much room the courts will give to protect people here.