LUTCF (Life Underwriter Training Council Fellow)

Overview:

The LUTCF designation combines essential product knowledge with the skills financial professionals must have to advise individuals and businesses effectively on their insurance and planning needs. A key to the program is ethical selling practices, and Ethics for the Financial Services Professional is required for every designee.

Educational Requirements:

LUTCF candidates must complete six courses, one required and five electives. The required course is Ethics for the Financial Services Professional. Advisors choose electives based on their individual practices and needs. Topics available include product education on long-term care, life insurance, annuities, disability income insurance, and business insurance. Skills-based training includes how to best meet client needs and the basics of estate planning, retirement planning, and investment planning.

Prerequisites/Experience:

Candidates must be a member of NAIFA to be awarded the designation following completion of all of the educational requirements.

Ethics:

Must adhere to the The American College’s Code of Ethics, which includes the following professional pledge: “I shall, in light of all conditions surrounding those I serve, which I shall make every conscientious effort to ascertain and understand, render that service which, in the same circumstances, I would apply to myself.” Because the designation is issued jointly with NAIFA, designees must also adhere to NAIFA’s Code of Ethics, which includes the following responsibilities:

• To hold my profession in high esteem and strive to enhance its prestige.
• To fulfill the needs of my clients to the best of my ability.
• To maintain my clients’ confidences.
• To render exemplary service to my clients and their beneficiaries.
• To adhere to professional standards of conduct in helping my clients to protect insurable obligations and attain their financial security objectives.
• To present accurately and honestly all facts essential to my clients’ decisions.
• To perfect my skills and increase my knowledge through continuing education.
• To conduct my business in such a way that my example might help raise the professional standards of those in my profession.
• To keep informed with respect to applicable laws and regulations and to observe them in the practice of my profession.
• To cooperate with others whose services are constructively related to meeting the needs of my clients.

Examinations:

Proctored, closed book exams follow each course.

Continuing Education:

New LUTCF designees in 2010 or later must complete three hours of approved ethics training every two years.

Enforcement:

Designation may be removed for unethical conduct through the certification committee of The American College’s Board of Trustees.

Accreditation:

The American College has the highest level of educational accreditation—regional accreditation—through the Middle States Commission on Higher Education.

File a Complaint about a Designee:

You may file a complaint in writing to: The Registrar; The American College; 270 S. Bryn Mawr Ave; Bryn Mawr, PA, 19010 or by emailing Registrar@TheAmericanCollege.edu.

Issuing Institution:

The American College, an accredited non-profit educational institution with an 84-year heritage, confers the LUTCF in conjunction with NAIFA. The College has a full-time faculty of industry experts and is the leading educator of financial professionals in the United States.
TheAmericanCollege.edu/LUTCF
NAIFA.org