From: Elyse Jensen [mailto:elyse.jensen@azurewealthmanagement.com] 

Sent: Wednesday, May 27, 2015 4:49 PM

To: EBSA, E-ORI - EBSA

Subject: RIN 1210-AB32

To whom it may concern,

I own my an independent, fee based RIA firm and though I agree with the intent of this proposed rule, I 

am concerned about several key points and how they will limit the consumers' access to financial 

advice.

• The Department of Labor released a proposal to define who is a fiduciary when advising 

retirement savers, including IRA owners. The rule and the accompanying exemptions are 

complex and costly.

• The rule defines all advisors who provide advice in exchange for compensation as “investment 

advice fiduciaries.”

• The rule requires a contract in order for advisors to be paid third party compensation such as 

commissions or revenue sharing fees under a new “Best Interest Contract” (BIC) exemption.

• The BIC exemption is unworkable in its current form as it limits education, does not include 

advice to plan distributions or rollovers to other plans, (including IRAs), and requires copious 

amounts of data and disclosure. Overall there will be less access and more costly advice.

• The DOL’s Notice and Comment period is only 75 days, far too short a time to responsibly and 

thoughtfully provide feedback to the DOL.

I can tell you from my experiences meeting and working with clients for six years, that how I am 

compensated does not impact my ethics. Those professionals who do not put the client's best interest 

first will be just at likely to take advantage of this proposed rule if it goes into effect as it is as they are to 

abuse their power in within current guidelines. I have come across numerous people throughout my 

career that had fiduciary agreements with advisors who were not acting in their best interest. Please 

read my example below:

• I was asked by a client to review the investment portfolio of her retired, widowed parent 

because she didn't feel she was receiving appropriate service on her investment portfolio. This 

particular client had significant net worth and was still invested in only entirely bonds and cash 

equivalents that they had sold out of equities to purchase in late 2008. The client had not 

received more than a quick annual phone call asking if they wanted to make any changes to 

their portfolio, which of course they didn't understand well enough to request additional 

assistance. When I became acquainted with the individual it was late 2012 and anyone in my 

industry would have been appalled by finding a client still so conservatively invested since the 

fall in the market in 2008. The person was not being serviced by her current advisor who was 

affiliated with the same company that managed her previous employers 401k plan. This 
individual couldn't recall ever signing any contracts with the other advisor, nor was she aware of 

the advisory fees being paid out of her portfolio quarterly. Aside from that, the individual had 

also not been through any type of financial planning process and had major risk exposure in the 

area of long term care. If not for my ability to sit down with this person, which I did during my 

time with a previous insurance broker/dealer when I did not take on fiduciary responsibility with 

clients, I would not have been able to make sure that all their estate, long term care, and 

financial planning needs were met.

The financial services industry is the private sector solution to a government problem - entitlement 

programs. Though my own practice mirrors many of the items in this proposed ruling, I would never 

have been able to get to the point where I can operate as such without first being allowed to assist my 

clients with their retirement planning without taking on fiduciary responsibility. This is important not 

only because I am a member of an increasingly aging profession and we need to train and educate new, 

young advisors. But also because to this day, there are prospective clients who I decline to work with 

because I can see that they are not well suited for me to take on that fiduciary responsibility. Example:

• I had a prospective client who is far behind in saving for retirement and felt that overly 

aggressive investing and trying to time the market would be the only way they could 'catch up'

to where they need to be. They bragged that they had earned 18% in the market this last year 

through their own trading activity and wanted to know what returns they could expect if they 

worked with me. I know very successful hedge fund managers that cannot boast those returns, 

and it is often only a matter of time until these uneducated day traders may errors and look 

significant amounts of retirement savings that would have been better protected from market 

volatility in a well allocated portfolio. In the meantime, none of the individual's risk based needs 

had been addressed. Their budget was so limited by debt that they would not contribute the 

necessary money to own an adequate amount of life and disability insurance to protect their 

family. Sadly, this prospective client is someone I come across all too often, and it is not in most 

people's nature to reach out to an advisor for help until they are in so much need for assistance 

that it is often too late. Though I sat down with this person and advised them on what to do, I 

would not take them on as a client as they would not listen to me. Personal investor behavior, 

along with general distrust of my industry, did, and probably will continue to, prevent this 

person and many like them from every being a client I would serve as fiduciary for. That, 

however, doesn't mean that if they want to roll over a retirement account or make 

contributions to an IRA that they should be prevented from doing so or have to risk costly errors 

doing so without professional help.

Though I do know abuse is present in our industry, it is a minuscule amount compared to those 

professionals who do honest, ethical work for their clients each and every day. By making it more 

difficult for my peers to do business, we are limiting public access to much needed resources. It is 

already difficult enough to convince the people I meet with to defer income to address future risks and 

goals. At a recent Financial Planning Association meeting, Tim Kiesling referenced a statistic that might 

be startling to you - only 39% of eligible employees participate in their employer sponsored retirement 

plans. This ruling not only places unrealistic restrictions on a large portion of an industry that does a lot 
of good, but also frames myself and my peers in a very negative light. Our country does not have a 

fiduciary & compensation transparency problem. IT HAS A SAVING PROBLEM! I believe placing more 

restrictions on advisors will only make it more difficult to do business and prevent more Americans from 

seeking the advice they need. And though 'intelligent portfolios' or 'robo-advisors' are becoming more 

common, the solution to America retirement crisis is not a qualified default investment alternative, but 

thorough financial planning. Americans are more likely to sell low and buy high out of fear if they are 

trying to be their own financial or investment advisors, and that is what will happen if there are less 

trained professional working with them (please read Nick Murray's Behavioral Investment Counceling

for examples of this).

I believe higher barriers to entry in my industry and more public education on financial planning would 

do far more good than this ruling to advance the financial health of our citizens.

Thank you,

Elyse A.D. Jensen, CFP®, ChFC, CLU

Founder & CEO

Azure Wealth Management

223 Walnut Street | Saint Paul, MN 55102

Office 651.300.2456 | Mobile 218.590.8513

www.azurewealthmanagement.com

Investment advisory services are offered through Azure Wealth Management, LLC; a Minnesota 

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