by John Darer CLU ChFC CSSC RSP
“Right, people you have to tell me these things, okay? I’ve been frozen for thirty years, okay? Throw me a frickin’ bone here! I’m the boss! Need the info”. Dr. Evil circa 1997
As industry members begin to realize that the shoes are dropping on the errant promotion of the CSSC designation, I have begun to receive the expected phone calls.
One common question has been “Why didn’t NSSTA notify us?” Some suggested a blast email or one even suggested a certified letter.
My September 13, 2009 blog post entitled ” NSSTA Position on “Promoting the CSSC” Certification – Structured Settlements 4Real® Blog contains links to 11 blog posts, a copy of my letter to University of Notre Dame. I also have in my possession (but not linked here) the response from Notre Dame and several emails to the NSSTA leadership.
The aforementioned post included the statement that “This author encourages NSSTA to circulate communication to all of its members alerting them to this web page and reminding them about their ethical requirements, under the NSSTA Code of Ethics to promote the certification properly”.
On September 13, 2009 NSSTA President Dan Durbin and President elect Mike Kelly as well as Executive director Joe Ricci, Larry Niemi (Board CSSC liason), NSSTA PR Director and website coordinator Peter Arnold and (among others) were sent an email which included:
“The NSSTA Code of Ethics includes in its preamble “Implicit in the acceptance of this Statement is an obligation to act in a professionally responsible and ethical manner when providing structured settlement services”. NSSTA’s posting of the page “Promoting the CSSC” on the NSSTA web site is a positive, however it needs to be more front and center, in my opinion.Right now its buried under “meetings”. Someone landing on the home page would never know it’s there I also think that NSSTA has an obligation to notify the “nearly 550 structured settlements consultants (who) have earned the distinguished CSSC designation” in a blast email or as part of the monthly news blasts with a link as well as each and every NSSTA Member Company?”
Download 9-13-09 Letter to Dan Durbin Mike Kelly and Joe Ricci re CSSC
Do you think NSSTA leadership has some explaining to do?
Post script: Joe Ricci the Executive Director of NSSTA and I spoke on Wednesday October 21, 2009. According to Ricci, NSSTA DID include notification of the guidelines and a link to Promoting the CSSC in a blast email along with the NSSTA newsletter on August 26, 2009 Download NSSTA email blast 8-26-2009. If you overlooked it because the CSSC guidelines were not in the bullet points in Dan Durbin’s President’s message please make a note to read the entire message.
Ricci also confirmed that the NSSTA Board WAS aware of the CSSC promotion guidelines and had the opportunity to review and approve them.
Leave a Reply