Complaint Review: Tom Forest / The Business Planning Group

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lance wallach has never lost a case as an expert witness on section 79 scams wallachinc@gmail.com

Tom-

I am responding to the comments from a couple of people who claim to have attended a meeting and found it not to their satisfaction. I was made aware of these comments only yesterday.

I noticed that both comments were posted on a Sunday, a non-working day for our industry. Apparently both of these individuals decided to pool their efforts.

One person references a "so called Section 79 Phoenix Plan," along with a statement that he attributed to me about having a copy write - correctly spelled copyright. The authorship of any document inures to the creator of the document. A policy document belongs to its author, in this case the insurance company. The "so called Phoenix Plan" is a copyrighted program, which belongs to my firm.

As a published novelist, I am fairly familiar with the copyright laws.

For the record and benefit of the person posting this complaint, our copyright is issued by the U.S. Copyright office and is number TX5-510-210. We update it periodically with the U.S Copyright office. Additionally, we are arguably the largest Section 79 vendor in the United States with well over a decade of very dedicated service to our agents and brokers around the country. For the benefit of the person making the comments we have in excess of one billion in business on this program.

The second person is unhappy with the term "de facto" expert. There are in fact two "de facto" experts in the United States in this specialized arena. I am just one. From where does the idea of this expertise originate? From trade journals and other publications that have made such references. It comes from developing an expertise over a long period of time in any industry where an individual reaches a certain high level of demonstrative skill recognized by industry peers and professionals who serve the industry. In this case I was not the person who claimed to be the "de facto" expert. It was another seasoned agent in the room who made the statement in reference to me. 

Even the attorneys who oversee the administration of this program at both insurance companies have stated that I am an expert in this highly specialized area. It comes from training thousands of agents and insurance brokers, conferring with a thousand or more tax attorneys, ERISA attorneys, regular attorneys, CPAs, EAs and other financial professions on behalf of their own clientele. It comes from years of long hard work and the hundreds of thousand of dollars spent by my firm in working with some of the best tax attorneys in the country and the U.S. Treasury Department to ensure that the program crosses every T and dots every I. It comes from working with both insurance company compliance departments and field sales management to create and maintain the best possible conveyance to the field sales force. It comes from offering CPE credits to the many CPAs we've trained over the years - CPE credit that has been approved by various state CPA associations that have reviewed the training materials for compliance to their own industry standards.  So be it.

And finally the last comment from the second person... "Little does this guy know our agency has been selling his product for over 4 years directly through the insurance provider."

First off I don't own the product, it belongs to the insurance company. Our program on the other hand is the issue. The insurance company does not and has never sold the "product" without the agent's sale going through the authorized TPA. Both insurance companies operate the same way. This was confirmed for me in the last 24 hours by the VPs at both insurance companies who oversee the program.

Contractually I was already aware of this but I think the commenter needs to know too. And if this person actually sold a case - which obviously he has never done -then he would know this. If it was sold 4 years ago ours would have been the firm it was sold through as we were the only TPA available for him at this insurance carrier at the time. As for training, we have been doing this for many years and if it is of interest I was inundated with questions and requests for materials and assistance after the meeting was concluded.

Since this meeting I have been invited to work with a dozen or more agents in this office including several additional meetings subsequent to this event. It appears that their General Agent, program manager and company do not appear to share their opinions. And for the record, the General Agent and divisional vice president of the insurance carrier were at the meeting. I was compelled to discuss the comments of the two individuals with them. To paraphrase the response of one of them, "Neither of these people appear to present themselves in a professional manner."

While our primary interest is serving the needs of our clientele, the credibility of the two people who wrote these obviously vacuous, dubious comments in an undignified manner and then hid their true identities behind a facade, the value of their comments belie their true integrity.

Regards,

Thomas Forest

President - The Business Planning Group, Inc.    8-12-2010

I was also in attendance last week to hear Tom speak about his so called Section 79 phoenix plan. My opinion is that the section 79 plan is a great product that provides a wonderful service to my customers as i have sold it many times here in NTC and New Jersey.