Mike Stewart
Mike entered the financial services industry in 1991 joining MetLife; where he was successful helping families meet their insurance and investment needs. During his time there he earned multiple insurance licenses including those for Property and Casualty, Health and Life Insurance, along with securities licenses from FINRA including series 6, 7, and 66 licenses. Mike also qualified for multiple Leaders Conferences, earned multiple years of membership into the prestigious Million Dollar Round Table and rose to the level of an Agency Manager in addition to earning MetLife's certification as a Financial Planner. After just over 10 years, his client’s needs lead him to leave MetLife and create WMS Group. Mike worked with OneAmerica Securities and later brokersXpress as an independent advisor. Each of these affiliations gave exposure to more certification classes and educational opportunities in financial planning and qualified pension plans.
During this time Mike was able to earn three industry designations, LUTCF (Life Underwriter Training Council Fellow), RFC (Registered Financial Consultant) and CSA (Certified Senior Advisor) to help further his education and abilities to more closely work with and benefit his clients and their unique needs.
From 2002 until 2012 Mike worked as an independent investment advisor but still through a Broker/Dealer relationship. In May of 2012, Mike decided to open his own Independent firm as a Registered Investment Advisory Firm (RIA). He made this decision so that he could truly work in his client’s best interests by putting them first instead of having a large corporate compliance department dictate his decisions for his clients, therefore creating the dilemma all advisors who work for a broker/dealer face as to whom they answer too, the client or the compliance department. Working through the fee based model, he is prohibited from accepting commissions. He can only receive fees from his investment service and advice, and has NO Broker/Dealer Relationship.
Of the three industry designations listed above that Mike earned, he keeps two of them active which are a benefit to his clients. The third, CSA is a senior related designation that he felt was or could be misleading to seniors that he was a “specialist” in the area of senior issues. LUTCF is earned through the American College and the RFC designation is earned through the International Association of Registered Financial Consultants. Both designations are focused on “specialization” of areas to further help Mikes Clients to achieve the results they desire. The “RFC” designation carries a requirement to achieve 40 hours per year of continuing education to keep the designation active. Since Mike first achieved earning the designation in 2001, he has completed 520 hours of qualified continuing education. To keep up with the important role of being a Fiduciary, Mike also obtained the AIF designation (Accredited Investment Fiduciary) so that he can stay on top of the important role of taking a fiduciary role for his clients. Mike resides in Covington, Louisiana with his wife Elizabeth and 3 Children, Andrew, Richard and Rachael.
