JOHN VANDER WIEDE, CLU, ChFC
My credentials start with the fact I graduated with honors from SUNY@Albany as an accounting major after which I was hired by the then “big 8” firm Peat Marwick & Mitchell’s (now KPMG). My contention is this suggests I have some better than average technical skills that might be useful if one were intent on dissecting complex financial products.
My accounting career evolved to progressively higher level positions over decades time, including:
- Auditor with a NYSE company that owned thousands of acres in S. Florida on which an entire city was built.
- Assistant Controller for a German company which built a 2,000 unit condo complex on Key Biscayne.
- Controller for what was at one time the 2nd largest NYSE publicly traded REIT in the nation, a company that owned hundreds of properties around the nation.
- Controller for a holding company with multiple joint venture subsidiaries that built hundreds of single family luxury homes and villas in South Florida.
- Treasurer for a group of privately owned residential real estate companies and President of a management holding company owned by a family group that built thousands of units in Boca Raton, Florida.
I shifted careers in the mid 1980’s joining Equitable Life (now AXA) as a financial sales associate; ranking in the top 1% of my 2,000+ person peer group that year and next. I quickly earned my CLU and ChFC credentials and later added certifications from the American College in “Estate Planning and Taxation” and “Pensions and Executive Compensation”.
As my financial sales and management career progressed I was:
- Promoted to District Sales Manager responsible for hiring, training and conducting joint sales calls. My District consistently ranked in the top ten of many hundreds nationally.
- Promoted to Agency Manager/Managing Director taking over a recently opened Orlando sales office. Twice recognized as the fastest growing office in the nation my agency consistently ranked in the top ten nationally in all measured performance categories. This success allowed me access to the highest levels of product and planning support services, including:
- Participation in home office committees focused on product design, advanced use of life products, compliance and various customer related issues.
- Serving on the National Disciplinary Action Committee helping company attorney’s monitor and sanction inappropriate sales activities.
- Serving on the prestigious committee advising home office management on a wide range of operational and field sales related issues.
- I subsequently took over over a struggling MetLife Houston, Texas office which I grew from 38 to 85 associates while also increasing production by over ten fold during my 6 year tenure by implementing extensive training programs and meeting one on one with my sales associates to assist them in their efforts.
At that point, absolutely disgusted with the home office executives of large life companies, I retired and returned to Orlando to be near my oldest daughter. I subsequently accepted positions helping now successful associates I had hired and trained in decades past in a variety of management and support roles. This included extensive analysis of many hundreds of life products owned by their client base.
I now find myself well positioned to analyze notoriously confusing life insurance products; the result of years of interaction with actuaries, product managers and from my participation on various product design committees. This is true at a time when many of the life products sold in the past are in eminent danger of lapsing, something the policy owners are blissfully unaware of.
I have invaluable insights and wisdom to share after decades of intense real world experience with those who manufactured the many types of life products people own today. I can help those struggling to understand problems impacting the life insurance products they already own and those who are now considering the purchase of a new life product to meet current needs.
I would be delighted if the information I have to share helps even one person or family improve their situation.
