Advisor Insights: CPR Financial and Insurance Service

Welcome to Vise’s Advisor Insights Interview Series. We’ll be interviewing financial advisors of all types on what makes them successful and how they’re incorporating technology into their businesses.

For the first installment of this series, we sat down with Charles Rosen, president and CEO of Vise client CPR Financial and Insurance Services. Read our interview with Charles below.

Charles, tell us how you became a financial advisor.

I started off in the insurance industry over 20 years ago after retiring from the entertainment industry. I studied and earned my Series 6, 63, 7, and Series 65, and worked with InterSecurities (owned by Transamerica), then moved on to work for Kovack Securities as they offered an opportunity for fee-based advising. 

It was during my time there that I decided I wanted to start my own shop and break away from the broker/dealer world, as the idea of commissions in investments never sat right with me. I started CPR in 2008 focusing on insurance and investment advisory services under the RIA model. It just made so much more sense to work on a fee-based model vs. the antiquated B/D model. It was better for the clients and it was better for relationship building, which is what this business is really about.

Tell us about CPR. Who are most of your clients? What are you most focused on?

When I moved to Texas from California in 2014, that’s when I really started growing the business and brought on new advisors, even opening an office in Miami. We do a lot of work in the employee benefits arena, which has grown substantially from the healthy amount of 401(k) plan work for businesses that has long been part of our core business. The businesses we work with range from as small as five employees all the way up to more than a thousand.

We’re serving about 500 clients with four total advisors on staff. We’re always looking to bring on other advisors as we continue to grow and scale the business.

How do you think about incorporating technology into the way you do business?

What I love about the technology we use is that it gives us broader bandwidth. One key benefit of leveraging automation is that we don’t have to manage actual trading for every account. With the complexity and hands-on approach we offer to our clients, it would be impossible for us to manage trading for all the clients we have without the help of technology. 

In this economic environment, people are a little bit stressed about their finances, but that’s actually a growth opportunity for us. It’s at times like these that people feel like they really need some advice or just someone to take the time to listen to them. When I meet with clients, they like that we have a very sophisticated system for their investments that’s able to stay on top of all the market tumult and still be able to nurture relationships with them.

>> See more insights about the use of technology in this Q&A with a financial advisory veteran.

What are you hearing most often from clients right now?

There’s a lot of uncertainty in peoples’ lives in general right now. Inflation, rising interest rates, job security, market volatility, taxes — they don’t know where to turn. They are glad that we are here to take the emotion out of the decision-making process. They love our approach and they love seeing their accounts adjusting to what’s happening in the world. That is what technology has given to us and our ability to serve them, because in the end, it’s all about the client.

What’s happening in the market that you think advisors need to be paying attention to?

At CPR we are not stock-pickers, nor do we have a crystal ball that will show us what is going to happen that may affect the markets. What we seem to be good at is seeing through all the hyperbole and fear-mongering. My advice to other advisors is to shut out the noise and pay attention to your clients. They are the reality. Advisors need to fight the urge to go look for the new shiny “toy.” Find your clients’ problems and solve them, period. It’s that simple.