CALU members set to vote on Advocis membership requirement
CALU members will vote on whether to repeal the Advocis membership requirement at a conference in Ottawa next week. Ekaterina Dukhanina/iStockPhoto / Getty Images
Members of the Conference for Advanced Life Underwriting (CALU) will vote next week on whether to change a requirement that they must also be members of Advocis, the Financial Advisors Association of Canada.
Advocis's strategic and financial partnership with CALU goes back several decades to when both groups focused on life insurance advocacy. CALU was formed in 1991 as a federal lobby group for Advocis members specializing in advanced life insurance planning, such as estates and business succession.
CALU members pay Advocis's annual membership fee of $1,060 in addition to CALU's own membership fee, which increased 20 per cent in the last two years to $1,625. The increase was partially due to Advocis ending its direct financial support of CALU.
Advocis has experienced financial troubles since 2022, losing revenue and members while expenses rose, leading to leadership changes. The Advocis website reports more than 7,500 members, down significantly from before the COVID-19 pandemic, and the number of full-paying members is closer to 4,300.
According to its website, CALU has about 400 members and provisional members who are required to be members of Advocis.
CALU established a working committee in 2021 to review dual membership. It decided to maintain the requirement but agreed to revisit the issue every few years.
Now the proposal is going to a vote.
'There is no tangible value to CALU members to be forced to be members of Advocis,' says Jason Pereira, president and certified financial planner (CFP) at Woodgate Financial Inc. in Toronto, who submitted the motion in 2021 calling for CALU to examine the issue. 'That's a personal decision they should make in line with their own values and judgments.'
Mr. Pereira dropped his CALU membership because of the dual requirement.
Elke Rubach, CFP at Rubach Wealth in Toronto, has been an Advocis and CALU member for years. She says the organizations bring different mandates to the table.
Advocis has been instrumental to younger advisors, she says, with ideas about building their practices and overall education and licensing support.
Ms. Rubach sees CALU for more advanced advisors who work on complex financial solutions for high-end clients.
She says the CALU vote on dual membership is welcome as it will allow advisors to decide on organization memberships for themselves.
'I'm a firm believer in letting advisors have the freedom to choose which organization fits our practice model best,' she says. 'If I want to be an Advocis member, let me choose that.'
Advocis said in a statement that CALU waiving the dual membership requirement 'is not in the best interest of its members or their clients. We encourage all financial professionals to remain a part of Advocis to demonstrate their commitment to upholding the highest standards in the industry and reinforcing the confidence consumers have in our profession.'
CALU declined to comment as the matter is currently before its membership.
A vote to remove the dual membership requirement would need a two-thirds majority of members attending CALU's conference in Ottawa next week. If passed, the amendment would take effect Jan. 1, 2026.
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