IRI’s Jason Berkowitz: Why Biden’s Fiduciary Rule Gets it Wrong

While the American Retirement Association is among those saying “fair” when it comes to the Department of Labor’s new proposed retirement security rule released last week that seeks to update the definition of an investment advice fiduciary under ERISA, many insurance-based organizations are crying “foul” over the controversial proposal, arguing that it imposes unnecessary regulatory burdens on investment advice.

In the interest of learning more about the reasons behind annuity advocate opposition to the proposal, we invited Jason Berkowitz, Chief Legal and Regulatory Affairs Officer at the Insured Retirement Institute, to share the chief concerns his organization has with the proposal, and President Joe Biden’s unflattering characterization of the insured retirement industry and its products during remarks made at the White House last week.

Berkowitz talks about potential implications to the five-part test, PTE 2020-02 and PTE 84-24 in addition to voicing concerns about the proposal pushing many more financial professionals into the realm of ERISA fiduciaries. He leads industry efforts on major regulatory initiatives applicable to the lifetime income industry and is the primary author of IRI’s comment letters regarding various regulatory proposals.