INSURANCE IN PERSONAL FINANCIAL PLANNING COURSE SYLLABUS. Course Number: X Quarter: Summer, 2014

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1 uclaextension.edu INSURANCE IN PERSONAL FINANCIAL PLANNING COURSE SYLLABUS Course Number: X Quarter: Summer, 2014 Instructor: Nancy L. McCready, CFP, CRPC, MBA Phone: (310) nlmccready@ucla.edu Sessions: July 2, 2014 September 10, 2014 (Each Wednesday begins a new week) Format: Office Hours: Online By appointment (schedule via or phone); communication by any time COURSE DESCRIPTION The primary purpose of this course is to provide a comprehensive and meaningful overview of key consumer and commercial insurance and risk management topics. Instruction utilizes a hands-on approach in analyzing fundamental insurance principles and needs, as well as explaining the role that insurance solutions play in financial and estate planning. Participants will learn to integrate personal and capital insurance needs into a comprehensive financial plan. Students will also be acquainted with the nature of insurance as a transfer device to reduce the financial impact of various potential loss exposures. COURSE PREREQUISITES: X Survey of Personal Financial Planning, X Financial Analysis in Personal Financial Planning, or consent of the instructor. EXPECTED LEARNING OUTCOMES Upon successful completion of this course, the student should be able to demonstrate a basic understanding of: 1. Fundamental concepts and principles of risk management. 2. Basic principles of insurance as a risk management device to transfer financial losses. 3. Techniques and methods of loss prevention and claims handling. 4. Life, Health, Property, Casualty and Liability insurance, as well as the underwriting and contract principles on which they function. 5. Government and social insurance programs and their place in our economic environment. 6. Evaluation of primary insurance carriers, re-insurance companies and underwriting approaches to business and personal risks from theoretical and practical viewpoints.

2 WELCOME You are pursuing an exciting goal and my objective is to help you achieve meaningful progress toward making it a reality and also becoming a more knowledgeable consumer. We will work together to make an extensive amount of material comprehensible and manageable. I know from personal experience how demanding this curriculum is and the challenges that you face in preparing for the CFP Certification Exam. As you work diligently and expand your understanding of course concepts, your ability to provide meaningful solutions to your clients needs will also grow. All of my industry experience reinforces for me that appropriately designed protection plans can make a profound difference in consumers and business owners financial well-being. INSTRUCTOR BIO Greetings I am a wealth financial advisor and CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER practitioner with Bank of the West Wealth Management in Los Angeles. I also hold a Chartered Retirement Planning CounselorSM designation and an MBA from the University of Virginia. My clients are typically busy, successful professionals and executives who seek help with making their financial lives more manageable and in protecting what they have worked hard to build. I find my work gratifying and endlessly interesting. I believe in the importance of pro bono work to help educate those who might not otherwise seek professional financial guidance, including participation in the annual Financial Planning Days that are jointly sponsored by the CFP Board of Standards and the Financial Planning Association. I serve as a CFP Board Ambassador for the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards to help inform the public about key financial planning issues through national and local media. In this role, I have been interviewed by CBS Los Angeles News for a story about a family facing financial crisis, by MarketWatch for a story on estate planning and by NextAvenue on retirement planning. I have also contributed articles on the importance of financial planning to the CFP Board s national newsletter, Let s Make a Plan, and to the newsletter of the Women Lawyers Association of Los Angeles. COURSE OVERVIEW This course is designed to help you become an effective and well-regarded financial planner. Specific textbook readings are assigned each week, though we will not always proceed through the chapters in sequential order. Be sure to follow the Course Calendar (page 7 of this syllabus) and stay on topic. The textbook publisher offers an accompanying website to which you should refer regularly throughout the course. Information posted on this website includes Internet resources, exercises, selfassessment quizzes for each chapter and textbook appendices There are 10 weekly case study assignments the offer opportunities to learn through teaching. You will address the protection needs of a hypothetical client and consider the individual s evolving concerns over time. Your objective is to educate this client about the subject at hand and offer appropriate solutions, based on your readings and any additional research that may be needed. Anticipate your client s questions and consider how to address them clearly and succinctly. Assignments are to be written in a script format and use dialogue between you and the client, as it would take place in an actual client meeting. Each case builds on the prior weeks cases. Please keep your work to two pages in length. If after reading an assignment, you are unclear about how to 2

3 proceed, please contact me so that I can help clarify what is expected of you. Completed assignments are to be ed to me by the dates listed on the Course Calendar. You will want to maintain a client file to which you can refer regarding past recommendations and communications for each new assignment. Assignments will be graded within 7 days of the original due date, except with approved extensions. Examples of effective work will be posted in the Announcements section of the course website each week to enhance your learning progress and enable you to also learn from each other. Weekly support materials include slides to facilitate your focus on key insurance topics, including concepts that are frequently addressed in the CFP Certification Exam. You will also find relevant articles that address current issues related to each course topic included in the weekly folders. Mid-term and final exams are scheduled for weeks 6 and 11 and include questions based on your readings and that are modeled on the format of past CFP Certification Exams. The course exams are designed to help prepare you for the material that may be included in the CFP Exam, along with evaluating your mastery of the course content. You will be permitted two attempts at each exam and will receive the higher of your scores. Discussion Board participation is optional but valuable. Regular engagement with your classmates and me will help foster a sense of community. Extra credit is available for effective discussion board contributions, as is explained elsewhere in this syllabus. Please get started by introducing yourself, sharing what you hope to get out of this course and letting us know about your real-world experiences with insurance. Thought-provoking discussion questions based on actual events will be posted throughout the course. For technical help, please contact Naat Jairam and Adam Bowling, the Course Managers, at support@unexonline.zendesk.com or (310) (Monday Friday, 8:00 a.m. 6:00 p.m. PT). EXPECTATIONS Adult learners benefit most when their instructor is clear and direct about expectations for course requirements and procedures. Here are a few expectations I would like you to understand as we begin this course. First, simply be yourself. We each bring varied experiences, needs and expectations to the course. You may also be working on different timetables for the CFP Certification Exam, assuming that is your ultimate goal. It will be easier to help meet your needs if you communicate them directly and sincerely. I am very learner-centered and hope you will always find me responsive and supportive. Please feel free to contact me - I d like to get to know you and understand more about your goals and concerns. I encourage you to commit to regular Discussion Board participation. In our model, the heart of active learning occurs through discussions that test your ideas, reinforce what you have learned and share resources with others in the class. We judge one another by the quality, clarity and depth of our writing. Communication should be professional and use good netiquette. Your posts should feature good writing and correct spelling and mechanics. In the spirit of scholarly discussion, I expect responses that agree or disagree with others, as long as they apply to the topic and are respectful. Please include my name in postings to me and do the same in responses to everyone else. No messages are private, so feel free to expand on any topic. Your responses should include more than passive phrases such as, I agree with that or Interesting comment. An effective posting might include an objective and critical analysis of what you read or experienced or, possibly, a short synopsis of a related assignment from another course. 3

4 I will be available online five days a week and will seek to respond to questions within 24 hours. Thank you for your thoughtful reading of the expectations. I welcome your comments. Have a great learning experience! READINGS AND RESOURCES REQUIRED: Course Syllabus Textbook: Principles of Risk Management and Insurance, 12 h Edition. George E. Rejda, PhD, CLU. Prentice Hall, Publishers. ISBN-10: Course Calendar page 7 of this Syllabus Discussion Rubric page 5 of this Syllabus RECOMMENDED: 1. Social Security Administration ( - for information on benefits and Medicare 2. Tax Facts on Insurance & Employee Benefits, National Underwriting Co., Cincinnati, OH ( 3. Insurance Journal ( 4. Property Casualty 360 ( 5. Life Health Pro ( 6. Financial Advisor Magazine ( 7. American Institute for Economic Research ( - for articles on Social Security, insurance and annuities COURSE GRADING AND ASSESSMENT POLICIES GRADING Grades are assigned on the basis of the weekly assignments and the exam scores, as follows: % Element 50% Weekly assignments (10) 500 points 20% Mid-term exam 200 points 30% Final exam 300 points 100% 1000 points Point totals will equate to the following grades: A = 900 points to 1000 points B = 800 points to 899 points C = 700 points to 799 points D = 650 points to 699 points Below 650 points will receive an F The instructor reserves the right to award up to 100 points of extra credit for meaningful Discussion Board participation and/or research and references that contribute to class development. Each discussion topic is open for one week and postings should be thoughtful and contributory. Extra credit should not be assumed as a given for merely checking in on the Discussion Boards or for posting late, after the specific discussion is completed. The instructor has full discretion on the awarding of additional points based on her sole evaluation of student postings. All course grades are final. 4

5 POLICIES ABOUT DEADLINES AND LATE WORK Weekly assignments are due by midnight on Tuesday of the following week. Work submitted by Friday of the same week will receive full credit. Work submitted beyond that point will lose ten percent for each day that it is late. Work not posted by the following week s session will no longer receive a grade. Please contact me in advance about assignment or exam scheduling issues so that we can work out a reasonable accommodation. University policy requires that all course work be submitted by the last day of class and no extensions are possible. ACADEMIC HONESTY POLICY Academic dishonesty covers behavior in cheating, plagiarism, and fabrication of information. These behaviors are not tolerated and will result in disciplinary action. Students are responsible for being familiar with the information on Student Conduct in the General Information Section of the UCLA Extension Catalog or on the website at DISCUSSION RUBRIC Please use this tool as a guide when constructing your postings. Mechanics of the Posting Participation in the Discussion Content of Posting Critical Thinking Evidenced by Posting Unsatisfactory Basic Proficient Distinguished Uses incomplete Uses complete Uses complete Uses complete sentences, is sentences; the posting sentences, sentences, organization unstructured in its is comprehensible. organization is is clear and thoughtful, organization, and Organization could be evident, and the the posting is includes frequent or improved to present a posting includes no grammatically correct, consistent errors in more coherent more than one and free of spelling mechanics (grammar, argument, statement, mechanical error errors. The tone is clear spelling, usage) in or question. Includes (grammar, spelling, and respectful. each paragraph. The 2-3 mechanical errors usage) per posting is unreadable grammar, spelling, paragraph. The tone and there is a distinct usage) per paragraph. is clear and lack of tone. The tone is respectful. respectful Provides minimal comments and information to other participants in the forum. Writes a general or superficial posting that is unrelated to the discussion at hand and/or posts no comments. Provides no evidence of agreement or disagreement with an existing discussion. and some new information on a sporadic basis. Interacts with only 2 participants in the forum. Demonstrates a restricted understanding of the concepts, topics, and ideas as evidenced by posting information that could be derived from prior posts and/or including highly general comments. Indicates agreement or disagreement with an existing discussion but provides no justification or explanation for comments. discussion, questions, and new information on a fairly regular basis. Interacts with three or more participants in the forum. Demonstrates an adequate understanding of the concepts, topics, and ideas as evidenced by posting superficial, or general statements in the forum. Includes a few details in the posting. Indicates agreement or disagreement with an existing discussion including a limited explanation or justification. discussion, and questions without a clear connection to the course material. discussion, questions, and new information on a regular, active basis. Shows a high degree of interaction with five or more participants in the forum. Demonstrates a solid understanding of the concepts, topics, and ideas as evidenced by thoughtful responses and questions that show a clear connection (are integrated) with the course material at hand. The posting shows depth and includes supporting details. Demonstrates a critical analysis of an existing posted idea or introduces a different interpretation to an existing concept or idea. Includes comments, discussion, and questions that have a clear connection with the course material. 5

6 SYLLABUS OVERVIEW This is summarizes the weekly course topics and related CFP Board Principal Topics: Session Topic Related CFP Board Principle Topics Week 1 Risk Management in Financial Planning Principles of risk and insurance Analysis and evaluation of risk exposures Week 2 Legal Principles and Government Regulation Analysis and evaluation of risk exposures Week 3 Insurance Marketing and Auto Insurance Insurance policy and company selection Week 4 Homeowners Insurance Insurance needs analysis Week 5 Umbrella & Other Liability Insurance Insurance policy and company selection Week 6 Individual Health Coverage & Social Insurance Health insurance and health care cost management Disability income insurance (individual) Week 7 Life Insurance Fundamentals & Needs Analysis Long- term care insurance (individual) Social Security (Old Age, Survivor and Disability Insurance) Life insurance (individual) Insurance needs analysis Insurance policy and company selection Income taxation of life insurance (individual) Week 8 Life & Annuity Contracts Life insurance (individual) Annuities Week 9 Employee Benefits Types of retirement plans Week 10 Commercial Coverage Business uses of insurance Week 11 Final Exam 6

7 COURSE CALENDAR This provides the progression of course topics, readings, assignments and scheduling: Schedule Topic Textbook Readings Title Assignments Due Exams Session 1 - July 2 Risk Management in Financial Planning Chapters 1, 2 & 3 "Insurance is a scam!" July 8 Session 2 July 9 Legal Principles and Government Regulations Chapters 8, 9 & 19 "Las Vegas - Not!" July 15 Session 3 July 16 Insurance Marketing and Auto Insurance Chapters 5, 22 & 23 and Appendix B "What about my car?" July 22 Session 4 July 23 Homeowners Insurance Chapters 20 & 21 and Appendix A "Condo Problems" July 29 Session 5 July 30 Umbrella & Other Liability Insurance Chapters 6, 7 & 24 "Consulting Challenges" Aug. 5 Session 6 Aug. 6 Individual Health Coverage & Social Insurance Chapters 15 & 18 "Mother Hits a Milestone" Aug. 12 Mid- Term Session 7 Aug. 13 Life Insurance Fundamentals & Needs Analysis Chapters 11 & 13 "Marriage - Good News, Bad News" Aug. 19 Session 8 - Aug. 20 Life & Annuity Contracts Chapters 10, 12 & 14 "Surprise, Surprise" Aug. 26 Session 9 - Aug. 27 Employee Benefits Chapters 16 & 17 "Partnership Possibilities" Sept. 2 Session 10 Sept. 3 Commercial Coverage Chapters 25, 26 & 27 "Analyzing the Business Venture" Sept. 9 Session 11 - Sept. 10 Chapter reviews & online resources Sept. 15 Final Grades posted by September 17 7