Subject: File No. S7-14-08
From: Ira Starr, RFC, LUTCF

November 17, 2008

My name is Ira Starr and I firmly oppose SEC Rule 151A.

I completed my formal higher education (University of Maryland) which included university level financial planning coursework in 1985 which is
also the year I entered into the financial service industry. I am a member
of the International Association of Registered Financial Consultants and
have earned my RFC designation which requires a minimum of 40 hours
per year of continuing education to maintain. I also have earned my LUTCF designation through NALU (now known as NAIFA). I am an active member
of the National Association of Fixed Annuities. I am a current member of the National Ethics Bureau as well as my local Better Business Bureau. I hold my Insurance Licenses in several states. I have been in practice serving the public for over 23 years without complaint only compliments from all those I helped to keep safe and secure.

My long term clients have happily achieved their retirement income goals
and objectives through the use of planning techniques that include the employment of Fixed Index Annuities. None of these clients ever suffered
a loss to their principal or interest credited to their policies.

None of my clients, acquired over the last decade, who have sought refuge for their medium to long term savings, within the safe harbor guarantees available within Fixed Index Annuities ever suffered a loss of either principal and interest credited to their respective policy contracts.

In fact many of my clients over the past several weeks have phoned and thanked me for sharing the benefits of Fixed Index Annuities and helping them protect what they had struggled to accumulate over the years. In addition, they told me they shared with others their positive experience and sense of security especially in light of the current economic situation.

Several problems exist with the proposed rule 151A. One primary issue surrounds claims about widespread sales practice abuses perpetrated against the public during the sales process. However the SEC provides no studies, research findings or related statistical evidence that demonstrates these stated abuses are endemic or even pervasive in any demographic age or region. In fact as of last count 41 states have adopted the NAIC Suitability Model and they report that only one tenth of one percent of all complaints (248) filed with state insurance departments relate to Fixed Index Annuities.

Those members of the insurance industry groups involved with Fixed Index Annuities such as NAIFA, ACLI, NAILBA, NAFA, IMSA and state insurance regulators deplore any fraudulent, abusive, and misleading sales practices.
As mentioned above, most states (41 to date) have adopted the NAIC Suitability Model. Many insurance companies manufacturing and distributing Fixed Index Annuities require the NAIC Suitability Model forms across the board in all states they do business. The companies have also instituted in house compliance and suitability departments to review product applications as an additional check and protection, hence the extremely minute number (noted above) of individual complaints regarding Fixed Index Annuities in relation to sales volume (billions of dollars).

If the SEC were to adopt rule 151A public access to this increasingly popular product would be significantly constricted. The cost associated with duplicated an already highly regulated and already thinly priced product would be prohibitive. The current free market competition amongst the insurance companies manufacturing Fixed Index Annuities have greatly improved costs and available benefits to the consumer. Adopting this rule would alter that scenario for the worse.

Many independent insurance agents such as myself who make up the vast majority of Fixed Index Annuity production would not make Fixed Index Annuities available as a savings product planning tool to consumers if these annuities were registered as securities (which they are clearly not as determined already in a past congressional ruling). This is particularly so because many insurance agents simply do not desire to become registered representatives associated with broker dealers and incur costs and administrative burdens relative to the requirements that are inapplicable to the business of insurance.

The results of agents and possibly quality insurance companies choosing to no longer offer Fixed Index Annuities would naturally limit public access to the product line. Such a consequence would be harmful to the public. Fixed Index Annuities are clearly not securities, not subject to risk of loss to principal and credited interest from market activity, provides minimum interest guarantees, income options that cannot be outlived and appeals to a large segment of the population who are financially conservative minded. This important financial tool which has played a significant role in the fixed secure element of ones financial plan would possibly go extinct. That outcome would be significantly damaging to the public especially in light of the current economic landscape.

I as a financial professional serving the public for over 23 years take that fiduciary duty quite seriously even though my sales activities and the products I provide such as Fixed Index Annuities are subject to very extensive state insurance department regulation.

It will be a sad day for the safety minded consumer if rule 151A is adopted in any form. It will be akin to turning the lights out of the lighthouse during a storm. It is also sad that it appears as though the broker dealer community is threatened by what is an obviously successful product that they would go to such great lengths in an attempt to quash the competition.

As a side note, it amazes me that a rule of accountability doesn't exist against the media outlets and others within our industry that disseminates sensationalistic material designed to mischaracterize and grossly misinform to the point of speaking (printing) untruths about Fixed Index Annuities whose economic security value to the consumer is ever so important especially now during this time of significant economic turmoil.

Thank you.