The man who transformed South Africa’s life assurance industry

Harry Brews

The Financial Planning Institute pays tribute to the late Harry Brews

“A CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® professional must have strong morals. He must abide by the Financial Planning Institute’s code of ethics. The interests of his clients must be his absolute priority. A CFP® professional must advise his clients to utilise whatever product is best for his client, not what is best for the CFP® professional” – Harry Brews, CFP® and first President of the then, Institute of Life and Pensions Advisors (ILPA).

Harry Brews transformed South Africa’s life assurance and financial planning industries into what they are today: ethical, respected and knowledgeable. Before, there was little respect for life assurance agents and the industry; with many perceiving them as lacking levels of good service and expertise when guiding clients on making sound decisions in their life assurance policies.
“This was in the 1970s and most of us in senior positions in the industry were well aware of the public perception that many life assurance agents were more like used car salesmen than investment advisors. This may well have been the case, with many agents having little knowledge of the nuances of inflation, taxation, investment options, estate duty, wills and the like – in other words ‘personal financial planning’,” said Harry in an interview conducted in 2012.

From good to great

Coming from a Liberty Group background in the Natal Region, where he already played a significant role in the insurance business by empowering brokers with more refined and improved technical skills, Harry later moved on to become the first President of The Institute of Life and Pension Advisors (ILPA) which was formed in 1980. “Our function was to set up and control the required standards of expertise and ethical standards,” said Brews. It was here that he became very perturbed by the life assurance industry that was not willing to provide further training to assurance intermediaries. He strived to ensure that they were more skilled, received further education and training in financial planning as well as effective methods of controlling the discipline and ethics of intermediaries.
In 1981, Harry was instrumental in motivating a team of qualified financial professionals to travel to the United States to study ‘the underlying principles and activities of what was then the American Society of Chartered Life Underwriters’. He also helped to set up the education programme combined with a binding code of ethics within ILPA. This later saw to the introduction of CFP certification in South Africa. But it was a result of all his team efforts that the Financial Planning Institute (FPI) became known as the pre-eminent standards setting body for competent and ethical financial planners, as it is internationally recognised today.

The life assurance industry today

The combined efforts of Harry have helped to elevate the life assurance industry standards to a degree that it is also widely recognised among professionals, ranging from bankers and lawyers to accountants and investment managers. Harry once said: “Many of them understand that a well-qualified CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER professional has a wider vision. A CFP® professional is intellectually capable of balancing all aspects of personal financial planning – the client’s age, circumstances and objectives, the client’s taxation, what the investment philosophy should be, estate duty considerations, the implications of inflation, the pros and cons of trusts. Professional persons, who do not have the CFP mark behind their name, should understand that they are not qualified to advise on personal finance planning”.
“The FPI mourns the recent passing of Harry Brews, CFP®, a man who made a great contribution for setting the professional standards for the industry and elevating it to the level of other reputable professions,” said Godfrey Nti, CEO of the FPI. “We have no doubt that his legacy will live on as the FPI continues to uphold the ethics and professional standards that Harry stood for”.