Subject: File No. S7-14-08
From: Tico Martinez
Affiliation: Personal Financial Representative

August 7, 2008

I am a PFR and licensed Life Agent.

I agree with the SEC on Rule 151A and believe that the case has been made and the facts are clear enough that this new Rule should be put in place. Mainly for the protection of the client.

My personal concern is how the Index Annuity is presented and sold by Life Agents. I have attended seminars and don't agree with the presentations that are used. What stands out the most for me is the Illustrations that are used. The Life Agent will normaly use an average on how the SP 500 performed for the past ten years. Which we all know that the returns cannot be compared to averages on such long time frames. Now if the illustration were to show actual returns from year to year for the past ten years then that would make more sense. To say that the SP returned an 11% average return on a ten year time frame is not the same as using real return figures especially when the SP shows negative returns. The customer is never shown those figures. Oh and we can't forget those Caps on the index annuty which has now destroyed the Average return that was used in the original illustration.

I also feel that the customer is not allways aware that their funds are not directly invested in the Index. (You can't invest directly into and Index) The customers that I have come accross all believe that their Index Annuity is directly tied to the market. It's only after we review their Annuity that they felt they were not told this when they signed the contract.

My last and final comment is my concern when it comes to product use. On many occasions I have met with many clients who purchaed an Index Annuity with 401k rollover funds. I feel that in these cases these clients would have been better off in mutual funds as they had the time horizon and risk tolerence that would have justified a brokerage account. The issue here is I believe you sell what you can. So the Life Agent is thus limited by their license as to what they can sell and not neccesarily what is best for the customer. How can a Life Agent know if an Index annutiy is better than a Mutual Funds if they can't sell Mutual Funds. (This of course is a case that involves retirement)