State Farm Agents Not Fiduciaries

An interesting article from Smart Money - State Farm, none too pleased with changes made to the standards to which their CFP designation holders must now be held, have instructed a few hundred agents who have that designation to abandon it rather than require them to be held to a fiduciary standard when providing advice on insurance.

It is understandable that State Farm would not want their agents to recommend a competitor's product if that were in the client's best interest and this move is an honest revelation that, for insurance sales purposes at least, State Farm wishes the agents to represent State Farm's interests - not the client's. In their defense, State Farm claims an implied fiduciary standard exists in the non-insurance portions of financial planning by their agents.

While no one at Compton Advisors, LLC holds a CFP designation, we support and adhere to the fiduciary standard of placing our clients' interests first in designing a financial plan.