Apriem Is Also a Licensed Insurance Agency. Here’s What That Means for You.

Any time a financial advisor can also sell insurance, it’s fair to ask whether that creates pressure to recommend a product because it pays, not because it fits. We think that’s a reasonable question, so here’s a direct answer, not a footnote.

The affiliation

Apriem Advisors is a registered investment adviser and is also a licensed insurance agency, operating under the name Apriem Insurance Services. Some of our financial professionals are individually licensed as insurance agents with Apriem Insurance Services, and in a small number of legacy cases, with other unaffiliated insurance companies as well. This is disclosed in Item 10 of our Form ADV Part 2A (“Dual Registration as Insurance Agency”).

Where the conflict actually comes from

The conflict is specific, and we’d rather name it precisely than gesture at it vaguely: when a client purchases an insurance product recommended by an Apriem advisor, Apriem Insurance Services receives a commission on that sale. That revenue is separate from, and in addition to, any advisory fee the client pays for investment management or planning. Because compensation decisions can take overall firm performance into account, an advisor could, in theory, have an incentive to lean toward a commissionable insurance product over a comparable alternative that pays nothing.

That’s the whole conflict. It doesn’t extend to portfolio management or our planning fees, which aren’t affected by insurance activity.

How it’s actually bounded, not just disclosed

Disclosure is the floor, not the whole answer, so here’s what actually limits how far this conflict can shape a recommendation:

• Insurance is a small fraction of the business. Insurance activities have averaged less than 1% of Apriem Advisors annual total revenue over the past 10 years. This isn’t a firm built around insurance sales with advisory services on the side, it’s the reverse, by a wide margin.
• Advisors generally don’t receive the commission directly. As licensed agents of Apriem Insurance Services, our personnel do not directly receive commissions on those sales. The exception is a small number of legacy relationships involving unaffiliated insurance companies, where some personnel do receive commissions, and that specific exception is disclosed in our ADV rather than folded into general language.
• You’re never required to buy through us. If an advisor recommends an insurance product as part of a broader risk-management or estate plan, you’re free to purchase it through any unaffiliated agent or carrier you choose instead of through Apriem Insurance Services. We say this to clients directly when the recommendation comes up, not just in the filing.
• Fiduciary duty applies regardless. As a registered investment adviser, Apriem owes clients a fiduciary duty on every recommendation, including insurance recommendations made in a financial planning context. A recommendation has to be in the client’s interest; the existence of a compensation conflict doesn’t change that standard, and the disclosure exists so clients (and their attorneys or other advisors, if they choose) can evaluate the recommendation independently.

Why we don’t just avoid insurance entirely

An advisor with no insurance license at all has no insurance conflict, but also can’t act on a life insurance, long-term care, or annuity need identified during planning without sending the client elsewhere and losing continuity on that piece of the plan. We’ve made the trade-off to keep that capability in-house, with insurance commissions averaging less than 1% of Apriem’s annual total revenue over the past 10 years, disclosed plainly, and never mandatory for the client. Reasonable firms land in different places on this trade-off; we’d rather you understand ours than discover it after the fact.

Where to read the underlying disclosure

This conflict, and how we manage it, is described in Apriem’s Form ADV Part 2A, Items 4, 5, and 10, available on request or at adviserinfo.sec.gov. If anything here raises a question the filing doesn’t answer, ask us directly; that’s a more reliable source than any summary, including this one.