Advisers Giving Back: Rickie Taylor

A plan consultant finds himself mentoring a group of young, Black professionals, and now has an open-door policy to try and help others.

Rickie Taylor didn’t intend to be a mentor.

The regional director for Retirement Plan Consultants, in fact, was quite content with his career, having advanced through the ranks to consult on qualified plans and lead business development with financial advisers and CPAs.

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As a Black man, he certainly was aware of the need for more diversity and inclusion in the financial sector and had taken on multiple volunteer positions, including as the first vice chair of the Association of African American Financial Advisors, vice president of the Philadelphia Securities Association, director of DEI for the Financial Planning Association of NJ, and member outreach chair for the Association for Wholesaling Diversity.

Rickie Taylor

Then, one day, a young, Black person just starting out in financial services contacted Taylor on Zoom to discuss the business and get advice. Taylor, feeling it was the right thing to do, agreed. The contact then asked if a friend also interested in the sector could attend. Then another, and another.

“So, there were the two of them I was speaking to, and then both of them said, ‘I’ve got a friend who wants to learn a little bit more, can they join?’” Taylor says. “And then it just multiplied. Before I knew it, we had a dozen people who wanted mentorship.”

At that point, Taylor suggested they all do a periodic Zoom call in which everyone could ask questions about and discuss a career in financial services. Some of the participants were already in the early stages of their career, and others were soon-to-be college graduates. The unifying goal for Taylor was making sure they all received an unvarnished look at life in financial services.

Straight Shooting

“I said to them, ‘Nothing is sugarcoated,’” Taylor says. “’You ask everything, and I’m going to try and give you the real answer. Or if I can’t, we’re going to get someone who can give you the answer to get you where you want to be.’”

What had started as an ad hoc learning session became something of a master class for these aspiring professionals of color, aged 21 to 27. For a few of them, Taylor’s connections in the industry led to job interviews and, for some, even job placements.

For others, it was a chance to consider whether financial services was right for them, Taylor says.

“We talked about everything,” Taylor says. “There would be questions like, ‘What exactly is asset management?’ to things like, ‘What should I wear to an interview?’”

Today, Taylor says mentoring is an everyday part of his life, often done on weeknights or weekends when he will grab a coffee or jump on a Zoom call with an aspiring financial adviser.

“In fact, I’m meeting someone for a coffee who is interested in finance this weekend,” Taylor says. “It’s not always easy, of course, but this person reached out looking for advice, and I feel it’s important to try and help them.”

Not all of Taylor’s mentees are people of color. They are a mix of men and women at various points in their journeys. But Taylor does his best to share his experience of financial services and, when it makes sense, connect them to the appropriate people in the industry in what is now a large roster of contacts.

Giving Back

Taylor says he is motivated to mentor, in part because he knows what it’s like to go it alone.

“Everything I do is centered around my own path coming up in this industry,” he says. “Point blank: I didn’t have a mentor. I didn’t have somebody trying to guide me and keep me on the path that would advance my career.”

Taylor says he has people he could have reached out to, but he didn’t think at the time it was possible to reach out and ask. Today, Taylor does not want to see people in that position struggle or give up altogether due to lack of guidance or a real-world example.

Taylor started his own career as an Internal Consultant at New York Life Insurance Co., where he worked with retirement plans and marketing for a then upstart 529 group. After that, he spent about 15 years working as a third-party administrator before joining Retirement Plan Consultants eight years ago.

Today, he appears regularly on the retirement speaking circuit, discussing topics ranging from retirement consulting best practices to efforts in diversity, equity and inclusion in finance. But more important than that, Taylor says, is a mentality of always keeping his door—or to be more accurate, his LinkedIn messaging open—to people interested in the industry, particularly those of color who, like him, are coming to the space with little experience, but a desire to succeed.

“All I ask [mentees] in return is that, when they make it, they take the time to do what I’m doing,” he says. “When somebody comes to you, a young person—help them. Pay it forward. That’s it.”

When it comes to the bigger picture of diversity in financial services, Taylor says there is a lot of work to be done. He notes that what had been a strong push toward DEI in the space a few years ago has died down a bit recently. That makes it even more important for corporations, and people, to make connections between individuals of color who are interested in finance.

“I believe we need to be honest and transparent about what is going on,” he says. “I think my transparency and my honestness is what brings people to me. … I’m not necessarily that person who will get up first at the party and start singing and dancing to get things going. But I’m always ready to answer a question or step aside with someone to sit down and have an honest conversation.”

Insurance Group Calls for Public Comment Period on IB 95-1

With the DOL yet to meet a deadline to propose modifications, the ACLI argues changes could put a chill on PRT transactions.

Pending changes to Interpretive Bulletin 95-1 by the Department Labor could create “negative repercussions” for workers and retirees involved in pension risk transfers, members of the American Council of Life Insurers argued during a roundtable event Thursday.

Under the SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022, the DOL is required to review IB 95-1—which outlines the fiduciary standards for selecting an annuity provider for a pension risk transfer—and was supposed to have recommended possible modifications to Congress by the end of 2023. The delay has only heightened industry concern about changes that could, in their view, negatively impact the PRT market.

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“We are concerned the report might criticize the annuitization process whereby a defined benefit pension plan decides to send some of the pension payment obligations over to a state-licensed life insurance company,” said Preston Rutledge, a consultant to ACLI and a former assistant secretary of Labor for the Employee Benefits Security Administration.

Rutledge argued that, instead of issuing new guidance, it would be better if a notice and comment rulemaking were published, as it would allow people to provide comments and possibly participate in a hearing before the DOL finalizes any regulation. Because IB 95-1 is guidance, it does not have to be publicized before it is issued in final form.

“It would be very advisable for the department, if they’re going to make changes to [IB 95-1], to do it in a more public way where the public gets to weigh in on a proposal before it’s finalized,” Rutledge said.

Cold Wind

David Turney, ACLI’s chief operating officer, said the DOL’s new guidance could have a “chilling effect” on employers considering PRT transactions.

Rutledge explained that are typically two concerns for people who oppose the PRT process. One concern is that participants lose protections under ERISA and the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation when a PRT is conducted. When that happens, the participant leaves the federally protected pension plan, and their benefits are transferred to a state-regulated life insurance company.

Another concern is that a life insurance company “may not be as salient” or as trustworthy as a traditional pension plan.

“Honestly, those comparisons seem strange to me, because both systems are excellent—the defined benefit system under federal law [and] the insurance system under state law,” Rutledge said. “If anything, the state system is stronger and more protected.”

He also argued that there are benefit reductions built into federal law that federal insurance agencies are required to assess, but he says very little of that, if any, exists at the state level.

Jillian Froment, ACLI’s executive vice president and general counsel, as well as a former Ohio insurance commissioner, argued that the purpose and mission of state insurance regulation is “ensuring consumer protection,” as well as overseeing the financial strength and stability of the insurance companies.  

“The life insurance industry regulation is based on preventing failures,” Froment said. “I would suggest that state-based insurance regulation is the best and strongest regulation in the world, and it’s actually been recognized by other jurisdictions as such.”

Froment said the International Monetary Fund issued a report late last year that recognized the global leadership of the state-based regulatory system.

Litigation 

However, several lawsuits have recently been filed calling into question the safety of participant retirement assets after employers conducted PRTs and offloaded pension liabilities to insurance companies.

For example, former participants of AT&T Inc. filed a lawsuit against the company last month, alleging that shifting its pension responsibilities for 96,000 participants to Athene Annuity and Life Co. in a May 2023 PRT placed retirees in danger. AT&T has denied the allegations.  

Part of the reason the former participants accused Athene of being a “risky” insurance company was because 80% of Athene’s PRT liabilities are reinsured through offshore affiliates in Bermuda, owned by Athene’s parent, Apollo Global Management Inc.

Mariana Gomez-Vock, ACLI’s senior vice president of policy and legal, said in the roundtable discussion that “Bermuda is a qualified reciprocal jurisdiction” and has been deemed as equivalent by the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority.

“What that means is that [Bermuda reinsurers] have been examined both by EIOPA and the U.S. and have been found to have a regime that meets the standard,” Gomez-Vock said. “There are very few equivalent jurisdictions; the U.S. is not even an equivalent jurisdiction. So that gives you a [sense] of the rigor that goes into these sorts of assessments.”

She added that the Bermuda Monetary Authority has made significant regulatory changes over the last few years meant to reassure regulators across the world that Bermuda has strong regulators.

“Whenever a company wants to do a cross-border reinsurance transaction into Bermuda, the BMA has said they will not approve those without checking with the domestic regulator first,” Gomez-Vock said.

As of Thursday, the DOL’s recommendations for an update to IB 95-1 have yet to be published.

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