August 29, 2008
Greetings
I have held Securities Licenses and a Kansas Insurance License for over 24 years.
In all my years in this business, I have never encountered a more misrepresented, client-unfriendly product than the Equity Indexed Annuity.
For obvious reasons, I have studied dozens of different versions of this product, hoping to find one that I could justify recommending to my clients. I haven't yet found it. Meanwhile, insurance agents have been "suckering" people (mostly seniors) into committing life-savings to these annuities. I've had more than one agent tell me that I was stupid to put clients' monies into positions which only paid 1 to 5% commission, when I could be making 12, 15% or more using an Indexed Annuity. (Never mind that the surrender charges stretch from 9 to 15 years) Even in the terrible bear market of 2000 - 2002, these people would have been MUCH better off in Bank CDs or Money Market Funds.
I hope indexed annuities get regulated out of existance