Miami Vice combined the sunshine and glamour of Miami with undercover cops, protection rackets and endless skulduggery.
At the opposite end of the spectrum, this June in Florida might well be termed ‘Miami Life’ as the city plays host to this year’s Million Dollar Round Table meeting.
This massive event will bring together more than 10,000 of the world’s most successful financial practitioners and, while many are investment orientated, others focus on protection.
Fortunately for the Miami Police Department, the protection that MDRT members specialise in is unlikely to be of much interest to the mafia.
It is, however, of vital interest to the millions of clients’ families and businesses across the globe who benefit from the protection MDRT members deliver.
Take business assurance, for example. How many times have cross-sell or buyout agreements set up between partners or directors proved useless because the survivors have not had the cash to pay out the value of a deceased partner’s share? Everybody loses.
The surviving spouse has an asset that they cannot sell, while the surviving partners or directors, having already lost a key income generator, still have to pay a share of their often lower profits to the survivor.
Then again, take something as basic as mortgage protection, which ensures that, if tragedy strikes, the mortgage debt is paid off so that the family can continue to live in their own home.
Appropriate financial planning and the miracle of life assurance can readily solve these problems at lower cost, and more effectively, than any other solution.
The reality is that, when tragedy strikes, it is the financial adviser who walks in with the money to pay off debts and preserve families and businesses.
The lawyers, the bankers and the accountants, for all their fancy documents, simply walk in with bills.
One of the great things about the MDRT annual meeting is the way that financial planners from across the world come together to share their knowledge and experience of investments and protection so that we can all achieve better outcomes for our clients.
I will be in Miami, will you? Or, to put it another way, could you have been if you had taken the time to put your application in last December?
If you have missed your opportunity this year, I hope I will see you in California next year.
Ken Davy is chairman of SimplyBiz Group
