Trusted Contacts

For Clients Only

LPL is encouraging clients to consider using two new forms to better help us help you. I agree with this wholeheartedly and will be reviewing these with you personally.

The first form gives me permission to share your account information with trusted family members, friends and financial professionals like CPA’s and attorneys. You can use more than one.  I’ll bring it up when we meet.

This doesn’t give these folks authority to trade or request money – just the right to ask or be told about the specifics of your accounts. In the past, your spoken permission has been enough but new regulations are tightening that access.

The second form is more personal. This allows one person to contact us – or be contacted by us – if there are concerns about fraud, abuse or unauthorized transactions. This is mostly for older clients but could apply to anyone who might be vulnerable.

I will call (and have called) approved family and friends when I saw red flags. I must notify our compliance department too. Now someone you trust can call us if they are concerned about your financial or physical security. You can read here for more about elder financial abuse.

Neither of these forms allows access to the money. For that you will still need powers-of-attorney or trustee designations. North Carolina just made some changes to our POA statutes so if your documents are getting a little long-in-the-tooth, it might be time to review them with counsel.

That’s it. Kim and I will ride herd on this but I thought I’d get the forms on the website if you’d like a peek. We can do this through e-signature too.

As always, thanks for your business and call anytime about anything. sh