Triad Brief Issue No. 4 | Oct. 20, 2026

Two weeks ago, we talked about building your firm by design, not by default. This issue picks up where that one left off.

Once something is built, we tend to stop checking on it. An allocation that made sense three years ago may not fit today. A client plan nobody has opened since the last review may be out of date. Every section this time asks you to take a second look, starting with the things that feel settled.

Inside this issue, you'll find:

•     The case for bonds after a historically bad decade

•     Why your team leaves the same meeting with different takeaways

•     What’s really behind a new sales hire who can’t close

•     How a second look turned a life insurance decline into an approval

Pick one thing you haven't looked at in a while and look again this week. Some things are worth the second look.

-Brad Johnson, co-founder of Triad Partners

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Brent Coggins, CIO | Triad Wealth Partners

What if you could turn $1 million today into over $5 million thirty years from now with virtually no counterparty risk?

That's roughly the math on areas of the bond market right now, and the investment is a 30-year zero-coupon Treasury (otherwise known as a STRIPS) which recently started trading for less than 20 cents on the dollar. Granted, your taking pretty sizable interest rate and inflation risk to get there, but on a nominal basis you will get there (so long as the U.S. government doesn't default on that debt).

As we all know, interest rates are inversely correlated with bond prices, and Treasury rates across the yield curve have been on the rise in 2026. From the war in Iran driving up energy prices to a more hawkish than expected Fed chair, coupled with fears over a mounting federal deficit, growing competition for capital and AI-related debt issuance crowding out government bond demand, it's no wonder that rates are under pressure.

There's a lot going against the bond market at the moment… and therein lies the opportunity.

Read Brent’s full take on the bond market Read more →

⏵ Before You Turn On AI, Treat It Like a New Hire (WealthManagement.com)

Anthropic’s Claude for Financial Advisors connects to tools many advisors already use, like Schwab and Orion, and plenty of firms are tempted to switch it on right away. In his latest article, Brad shares why Triad CTO Quin Kilgore and CCO Shannon McGinnis say to vet every connector as its own vendor and put a written AI use policy in place first.

⏵ Pre-Retirees Want Income They Can Count On (LIMRA)

Nearly three in four pre-retirees (74%) want to learn more about protected lifetime income, yet only 25% believe their protected income sources will cover essential expenses, according to LIMRA’s 2026 Retirement Income Readiness Report. Only 40% work with a financial professional at all. And the clients who feel most prepared are often the ones who haven’t revisited their plan. Stay tuned for tips coming in the next issue on how to start the conversation around protection when markets are strong.

⏵ Advisors Close the Long-Term Care Gap (Insurance Business)

Americans with a financial advisor are twice as likely to have planned for long-term care (66% vs. 34%), according to Northwestern Mutual's 2026 Planning and Progress Study. Nearly six in 10 Americans also believe Medicare covers it, per a 2025 Nationwide survey cited in the piece, when Medicare covers only short-term skilled nursing under specific conditions. That misconception is a natural way into the conversation.

⏵ Advisors Grow More Cautious on Stocks (WealthManagement.com)

Advisor sentiment toward the stock market fell three points in September to 115, still positive but 12% below May’s all-time high, according to WealthManagement.com’s Advisor Sentiment Index. Nearly four in 10 advisors (39%) now expect stocks to decline over the next six months, the largest share with a negative near-term outlook in five months, and several described equities as overvalued. Brent’s piece above offers another place to look for opportunity.

⏵ Advised Clients Are Asking AI About Their Money (Financial Advisor)

Nearly two-thirds of Americans who work with a financial advisor (63.8%) asked AI about their money in the past year, compared with 38.5% of those without an advisor, according to a new study from Evergreen.ai. Advised respondents were also nearly three times as likely to act on AI’s answers without checking them. Your clients may already be getting a second opinion, so ask what they’ve been asking.

Triad Life Insurance Team | An Illustrative Case

Not all clients may be ideal candidates for life insurance; often health issues may lead to a decline from a carrier. However, asset-based LTC products may offer a solution that satisfies the client’s needs.   

Consider a married couple, both 66, looking for a way to fund their long-term care planning strategy. Both have extensive medical histories. He has osteoporosis, plantar fasciitis, lumbar spondylosis, asthma, obstructive sleep apnea, deep vein thrombosis, a vocal cord repair, chronic interstitial cystitis, and diverticulosis. She has osteoporosis, arthritis with knee surgeries, hypothyroidism with a thyroid cyst, vertigo, insomnia, Type 2 diabetes and hypertension.

Life insurance with long-term care benefits is the preferred solution; however, it is likely that insurance carriers will decline outright or only offer rated coverage.

⏵ The underwriting strategy.  Rather than accepting the decline, consider alternative strategies to meet the ultimate need of allocating assets to help address the expenses associated with long-term care.  Life insurance and asset-based LTC underwriting weigh risk differently, so, if you have a case like this, the Triad Team can assist by taking the case to the carrier for an informal review first. Once we receive a positive response based on the informal review, a formal submission for an asset-based long term care policy will follow.

⏵ The result. The carrier issues the policies, and the coverage fits the couple’s long-term care planning strategy.

⏵ The takeaway. A likely life insurance decline doesn’t always end the conversation. The Triad Life team can help you consider alternative strategies for clients with complex medical histories.  Our Life team is happy to reach out to carriers for an informal review so that you can have the confidence of presenting your client with a viable option. Sometimes the right solution is just a different underwriting lens away.

Individual Results May Vary.

Contact the Life Team →

Triad Culture Coaches

There are nine Enneagram types. If you assume everyone on your team sees the world the way you do, you’re right about one time out of nine.

That’s where personality assessments earn their place. They give a team a shared language for how each person thinks and communicates, so differences read as information instead of friction. The Enneagram is one we use at Triad, and many of our members use it with their own teams.

When we coach teams on culture, we often start with one of its most practical lenses: time orientation. Each type tends to operate from the past, the present or the future, and most people don’t realize which one they’re in.

Founders often live in the future too, which is why we coach leaders to speak last. When the fastest voice goes first, the rest of the room stops thinking out loud.

Pick one person on your team this week and make one small shift toward the way they process.

A founder hires a second advisor, spends a week giving them the download and starts filling their calendar. A few months later the new hire hasn't closed a client, and the founder is ready to write off hiring altogether.

Brad has taken that call more than once. On DBDL Ep. 186, he walks through what’s actually behind it. Most of the time, he says, the problem isn't the person. It's the track that wasn't there when they walked in the door.

He suggests what he'd build instead: clearly defined advisor roles before you add headcount, a new hire who rides shotgun on appointments before trading seats, a five-minute after-action review while the meeting is still fresh and lead flow that matches each advisor's experience to the complexity of the case.

Listen to the episode →

⏵Your AI Implementation Guide, Worth a Second Look

Triad’s AI Implementation Guide walks through the policy and vendor review work regulators expect to see. If you skimmed it last issue, use it now to check where your firm stands before you add another tool.

Download the guide →

⏵ What Founders Took Home From The Table

Triad Founders at The Table left Kansas City with a 2027 plan built around what's breaking in their firms right now, after an inside look at how SHP Financial scaled beyond its founders. Triad Labs will build on that in 2027, adding marketing and operations programming alongside sales.

Read the announcement →

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