Tier One Interview: Anne Jones
- Jay Judas
- Mar 14
- 5 min read
This month, Jay sits down with Anne F. Jones, Partner and Founder of Artemis Partners. Anne shares what she’s actually seeing when advisors and clients bring her inherited life insurance portfolios that aren’t performing the way they were expected to, and why rigorous diagnostics have become one of the most valuable services in high-end insurance planning. They discuss what’s happening in the PPLI market as interest grows and more firms attempt to scale something that doesn’t always scale well, along with the generational shift Anne is watching in long-term care planning as families respond to difficult experiences with aging parents. Read on to learn more!
JAY: Anne, I will start by paying you a back-handed compliment. This is what I would call a “bandwagon” interview. By this, I mean that I have been hearing a lot of positive and enthusiastic buzz about you from several people about your life insurance practice and how you work with your clients, so I said to myself, “I need to get on the bandwagon and include Anne in the Tier One Series!” Let’s begin by hearing about your firm, Artemis Partners, and your role in the organization.
ANNE: A pleasure to be included on the bandwagon. And I appreciate you thinking of me and Artemis for the Tier One Interview Series. I am the owner and founder of Artemis, a Lion Street affiliated firm. I wear a lot of hats, as do the other members of the teams, but my focus is cultivating business for the firm while also overseeing and directing the growth strategy for Artemis. I’m a product dork so I also keep up to speed with what’s on the market.
JAY: You entered the high-end of the life insurance industry after college and have never looked back. I am curious to hear about your upbringing and your career path that took you to owning your own firm. Because you attended the University of Georgia, I mistakenly thought you might not be a Texas native…..and that is not the case, right?
ANNE: I’m actually a Texas native. I was born in Paris, Texas, a small town in East Texas. We moved to Dallas when I was in elementary school. I can remember seeing an escalator for the first time and I realized how different my life was going to be! My father, who passed away when I was in college, was a self-made man, an entrepreneur who taught me to be independent. I was fortunate enough to land in the life insurance industry working for a father and son shop that believed life insurance was an asset and should be treated as such. After 13 or 14 years in the industry, I took the leap of faith, went out on my own and founded Artemis.
JAY: When we spoke about your family, you said your grandmother recently passed away and that your mother was in her 70s, healthy and frequently traveling, and this exposure to aging has spurred discussions around long-term care. In fact, you see interest in LTC from your clients. Why do you think LTC is top of mind with so many people and how do you position various LTC solutions?
ANNE: Most people make changes or shift direction after an experience. A client is upset at performance, they switch advisors. A son or daughter or grandchild sees one of their elders, their mom or dad or grandmother, go through end-of-life complications it typically creates one of two reactions: paralysis or planning. The next generation in their 40s and 50s have personally experienced long-term health challenges as well as the financial challenges. The Doers of the generation want to proactively plan for future needs to not lay the burden on the next generation. This is where long-term care coverage can help.
JAY: It would seem to me that LTC concerns are probably just one component of the multigenerational wealth and tax planning that you do for clients and for which you are well-known. As we discussed this topic, you said something very interesting when you noted that 75% of Artemis’ revenue comes from new business and that 25% comes from service work. With regards to service work, you are frequently approached by new clients to fix their existing planning strategies. What are you fixing and how do you go about it?
ANNE: Our service approach, The Artemis Assessment, is the foundation of our business. We are approached weekly by our advisors and centers of influence to assist them with doing a deep dive into their clients’ insurance portfolios. Until recently, this was something I believed so much that I wanted everyone to experience it so I provided the Assessment as a free service. We have since switched to a fee-based model and have found that advisors appreciate the cost associated with the review because it brings an element of objectivity rather than being viewed as transactional and sale driven.
JAY: One of your specialties is private placement life insurance. Followers of my company know that I frequently say the minimum total premium for a PPLI case should be $10 million. At that premium, fees from all the counterparties do not stick out and the client is more likely to be happy with their policy’s performance. Lately, you have been seeing the other side of this. What have you been experiencing?
ANNE: I feel like PPLI is such a reactionary product. Two decades ago, every bank and AUM shop started adding IDFs to their platforms. The funds didn’t reflect the actual risk appetite or tolerance of the clients, and the poor performance of many of those IDFs was a problem. Fast forward to the market today and I see another problem - advisors having FOMO and taking a mass market approach to PPLI. Frankly, some firms and groups are trying to commoditize PPLII and to make it a solution available to the mass affluent market. From experience, anemic funding and poor performance don’t provide positive results.
JAY: Although you are working hard on serving your clients and growing Artemis, you do have a lot to handle at home. How do you spend your time away from your firm?
ANNE: HAHA. I have a few things going on starting with having a blended family with four kiddos and two dogs. My twin boys are 13-year-old teenagers so that’s not chaotic at all! No, I spend most of my free time with my family. My partner David and I travel when we have a chance. Honestly, weekends when we have nothing on the calendar are the best weekends so we can do nothing.
JAY: This has been wonderful, Anne. You definitely fit our Tier One qualification as someone in the top tier of the life insurance industry. We have come to our famous restaurant question – a question you mentioned you have been feeling some pressure about! Without naming a steakhouse or a steak dish, give me some recommendations on where I should eat and what I should order when I am there.
ANNE: Great question – thanks, again, Jay. When you come to Dallas eat at Bacari Tabu. Order the lobster ravioli and the clam pie. Don’t forget a good bottle of Italian wine and enjoy the jazz.
Since its inception, Life Insurance Strategies Group has solely focused on the individual high net worth life insurance market. We do not sell products. This allows us to offer unbiased, pragmatic advice. Visit us at www.lifeinsurancestrategiesgroup.com.