Ohio’s Securities Division is expanding a state-level program to help advisors better assist clients facing addiction. With a nationwide rollout, the division hopes the country’s largest investment firms will sign on to help spread the message even further.
“Recovery Within Reach” is the first-ever continuing education course for advisors who want better strategies for reaching clients in the throes of the stress that opioid addiction and mental health struggles can place on them and their families.
The course will count for one CE credit with the North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA). It includes three modules on understanding the prevalence of substance use disorder, its financial consequences for clients and families, and an advisor’s role in helping plan for the financial burdens of addiction and treatment.
Gov. Mike DeWine and Ohio Securities Commissioner Andrea Seidt originally announced the initiative in the state in 2022. In addition to public advertisements for advisors, Seidt’s team developed modules tailored for Ohio-based advisors helping clients with addiction (or who are facing addiction themselves) that served as the genesis for the national program.
In an interview with WealthManagement.com, Seidt said that despite the widespread problem (both in Ohio and nationwide), advisors facing the situation with a client for the first time can often feel lost and not understand the disease.
“There’s a lot of stigma still to this day that is attached to addiction and mental health disorders,” she said. “So they did appreciate the training on how to have those conversations, how to spot clients and families and needs, and some of the things they could do to signal that they are an ally, and that they are there to help.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control, drug overdose deaths nationwide over a rolling 12-month period were approximately 80,674 as of November 2024. Though extremely high, this was a marked decrease from the same rolling 12-month period in November 2023, when the reported number of deaths was 108,529. According to a 2023 U.S. National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 48.5 million (about 16.7%) Americans aged 12 or older had “battled a substance use disorder” in the previous year.
Seidt got the idea to expand the program from Nationwide Insurance, which included the modules as training programs for their advisors throughout the country. Nationwide told Seidt that other prominent investment firms would benefit from a national CE program.
According to Seidt, the new program is a “pretty big upgrade” from the previous Ohio-only iteration. The national module includes more video testimonials featuring advice from advisors who participated in the Ohio program.
“They really want to hear from people with lived experience, and they want to hear from financial advisors directly about how this has impacted them and things they can do in order to navigate the financial cost of addiction,” Seidt said.
The education modules in Ohio and the new national program outline a bevy of tangible, attainable steps advisors can take to make clients feel more comfortable about broaching the subject of addiction. For example, Seidt noted that when advisors are doing their onboarding and annual reviews, they could ask about potential financial challenges the client may face, including whether there would be significant health care costs.
“A lot of times it’s the usual health care costs; do you have major treatments related to cancer or heart disease, or this, that, and the other? They don’t mention substance use disorder or mental health disorder, but they should,” she said. “If they start including mental health disorders like substance use in the list, and you have a client who has those issues, it just provides an easy avenue to have that conversation.”
The program is free and takes approximately an hour to complete. While Nationwide has integrated the module into its training program, Seidt hopes other large firms will follow suit. By doing so, the program can scale to thousands of advisors instantly.
Either way, Seidt is adamant that industries outside the public health community must get engaged if we want to stem the tide of the epidemic.
“It’s not enough for our doctors, and our hospitals, and our clinics to know and deal with this alone. They’re seeing the people that are losing their lives to this epidemic, and they just can’t do it on their own,” she said. “It really will take all of us outside the public health community to get engaged, and to get early intervention.”
