The Advisor to Advisors: Michael Fliegelman

Michael Fliegelman is a Mass Mutual brokerage director and the CEO and founder of SWAN, the Strategic Wealth Advisors Network. As a leading authority on estate and business succession planning with extensive experience in analyzing life, disability and long-term care insurance policies, he has a talent for helping clients and insurance professionals to do their financial planning in a holistic and comprehensive manner. 

Michael got into the business primarily because of his entrepreneurial nature, but he also recalls how his parents had worked hard their entire lives to have a substantial nest egg only to see much of their fortune eroded due to the expense of long-term care while living in an assisted living facility.  Michael saw a need to help people protect those things that are important to them and found that his work in the insurance business helped people to set up plans that guaranteed them income for life.  He feels immense satisfaction when he sees that his clients feel safe and protected.

For the past 28 years, Michael has been helping insurance professionals build their practice through the financial services business. As an advisor to advisors, he does training, mentoring and works collaboratively with agents and brokers in the field, so they can work effectively with their clients in the areas of financial planning, estate planning, life insurance planning, disability insurance planning and long-term care insurance.

Michael’s approach is to take a holistic view of his work with other insurance professionals. By marrying the property and casualty agency with life insurance, disability, and any services related to financial planning, he and his colleagues are able to build successful businesses.  He sees each aspect of insurance and financial services as interrelated, where no one part is greater than the whole, and every part is needed to create a strong and integrated business practice.

Michael said, “When you take a holistic approach, there is a lot of opportunity to ensure my clients greater satisfaction. By offering the full array of services, such as financial planning, estate planning, life insurance planning, disability insurance planning, long-term care insurance, and comprehensive investment solutions, my clients feel that I am taking care of them.”

Michael always considers what matters most to him: his family, his wife and two children.  Michael recalls how his father, Max, grew up in poverty in the lower east side and served in WW II, where he drove a tank under General Patton, fought in the Battle of the Bulge, and was part of the armed forces that liberated the concentration camps.  He worked hard his entire life and built a successful wholesale jewelry business only to face the complete loss of his retirement savings in the end.  Michael doesn’t want to see people in the position that his father faced.  By working with agents and brokers, Michael feels that he is able to give them the right expertise and confidence so they can effectively serve their own clients in the same way he is able to serve all of his clients.