Retirement Income Planning – Challenges & Solutions
John L. Olsen, CLU, ChFC, AEP is an insurance agent, estate planner, author, andeducator, practicing in St. Louis County, Missouri.
He holds the Chartered Life Underwriter (1983) and the Chartered Financial Consultant (1985) designations from the American College. In 2004, he received the designation of “Accredited Estate Planner” (AEP) from the National Association of Estate Planners & Councils.
John joined the financial services industry in 1973. He has worked for several insurance companies as an insurance agent, sales manager, Agency Director of Training, and Regional Marketing and Sales Consultant In 1987, he left management to form his own firm, Olsen Financial Group, of which he remains President. In 2010, John formed, with co-author Jack Marrion, Olsen & Marrion, LLC, which publishes their book Index Annuities: A Suitable Approach.
John has written and taught courses in insurance, financial, and estate planning and conducted seminars for agents, planners, and lay audiences. In addition to serving his own clients, John provides case consulting services to attorneys, accountants, insurance agents, and financial advisors, and provides expert witness services in litigation involving annuities and investment products. He is a Past President of the St. Louis chapter of the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors (NAIFA), current Vice-President of the St. Louis Estate Planning Council, and serves on the board of directors of the St. Louis chapter of the Society of Financial Services Professionals.
John has written dozens of articles on life insurance, annuities, planning software, and financial & estate planning topics, published in many industry journals and magazines and has been quoted many times in articles on annuities, life insurance, and retirement planning In 2010, John was named to the Editorial Advisory Board of Tax Facts, a tax reference work widely respected and used in the financial services industry. He edited the questions relating to annuities in the 2011 edition.
John is co-author, with Michael E. Kitces, of The Advisor’s Guide to Annuities (4th. ed., National Underwriter Co., 2014), with Jack Marrion, of Index Annuities: A Suitable Approach (Olsen & Marrion, 2011 - www.indexannuitybook.com) and is the author of Taxation and Suitability of Annuities for the Professional Advisor (2nd edition, an e-book, is available on amazon.com). John’s article, “Annuities and Suitability: Reflections on the State of the Debate”, appearing in the Nov, 2006 issue of the Journal of Financial Service Professionals, won the First Place prize in the 2006 Kenneth Black, Jr. Journal Author Award Program. In 2011, John was awarded the Paul S. Mills Scholarship by the Foundation for Financial Service Professionals, an award established to recognize the conferee’s demonstrated commitment to lifelong education, volunteerism, and ethical practice.
John is a sought-after speaker, having given presentations to chapters of the Financial Planning Association, the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors, and the Society of Financial Services Professionals, to several Estate Planning Councils, the Missouri Society of CPAs, the Southern California Tax & Estate Planning Forum, the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys, several national conventions of the Financial Planning Association, the national conventions and “Arizona Institute” of the Society of Financial Services Professionals, and the Heckerling Estate Planning Institute.
John lives in Kirkwood, Missouri with his wife, Katherine. He enjoys teaching, writing, reading, and arguing almost anything, is an adequate pistol shot, and a terrible golfer. John can be reached at: 131 Hollywood Lane / Kirkwood, MO 63122 / voice: 314-909-8818 / email: jolsen02@earthlink.net.
