An Everyman Boardroom in the

Eric Lidemark’s first day in the life insurance industry was challenging. However, the principal of Lidemark Financial Group Inc. in Surrey, B.C., and new Advocis chair says it taught him a valuable lesson and kicked off a lifelong friendship.

Back in 1977, Lidemark’s manager at London Life, Paul Coridor, CLU, arranged a 7 p.m. meeting with policyholders. Lidemark and Coridor arrived right on time, and the wife, who had set things up, ushered them in. The husband, however, wasn’t expecting them. As they all sat around a table working on a needs analysis for the family, the husband became increasingly uncooperative. Coridor assessed the situation, closed his books, and said simply, “I guess now is not a good time. Thanks. We’ll leave.”

“We were in and out of there in a very short period of time,” Lidemark recalls. “We got in his car and Paul said to me, ‘Well, there’s your first day. It’s all uphill from here!’ It was such a good lesson in that you can’t make everybody happy, and you have to accept the reality of what it is, and you let it go and you carry on.”

Coridor was Lidemark’s manager for five years, his first mentor, and the best man at his wedding. He encouraged Lidemark to earn his CLU, and Lidemark did so with distinction, winning the Leslie W. Dunstall Award for CLU® Studies when he got the best mark in British Columbia.

Despite an inauspicious first day on the job, Lidemark, CLU, CFP, CH.F.C., CHS, soon grew to love his profession. He enjoyed having the opportunity to continuously learn and grow, and he became a manager. He also appreciated the CLU chapter meetings Coridor invited him to, and the generous camaraderie of the business. Today, he prizes the fact that he’s built 30-plus-year relationships with both colleagues and clients.

The Succession Challenge

Including his years with London Life, Lidemark had three separate management careers before becoming an independent producer in 2000.

Founding Lidemark Financial Group Inc. gave him freedom and allowed him to control his own destiny — but it also meant he was wholly responsible for finding a successor to take care of his clients. After buying 15 books of business over the years, he’s now spent a decade organizing the orderly transition of his own business to younger advisors. But he worries many advisors of his generation aren’t spending enough time on succession planning.

“In Canada, there are probably thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of orphan clients — people with no advisor — and it doesn’t look good on our business,” he says. “Advisors talk to clients about retirement all the time, but don’t make a plan for themselves.”

In addition to his succession plan, Lidemark has created two emergency transition agreements, one for the investment side of his business and one for the insurance side, that will activate if he isn’t able to carry on his responsibilities. Notifications will go out right away to clients introducing them to his two (investment and insurance) successors. No one will be orphaned.

Lidemark seeks out opportunities to speak about advisor retirement, working to raise awareness and explain what needs to be done. He believes succession planning is one of the biggest challenges facing the industry.

A Serial Volunteer

Throughout his career, Lidemark has also advanced the profession by stepping up, again and again, when asked to sit on an industry board.

He became president of the BC Mainland CLU Chapter in 1988, winning the DeHaerne Award for best chapter. As treasurer of the Advocis Greater Vancouver Chapter in 2003, he worked on the integration of the Vancouver chapter of the Canadian Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors (CAIFA) and the BC Chapter of the Canadian Association of Financial Planners (CAFP) into Advocis.