November 14, 2008
Hello:
I strongly urge the SEC to support the Equity-Indexed Annuity Rule. I am a Raymond James Financial advisor with 25 years of experience, a registered principal, a Certified Financial Planner certificant, a Certified Life Underwriter, a Chartered Financial Consultant, a licensed life insurance agent, a member of the FPA, and a Registered Investment Advisor.
If the banking and mortgage crisis has shown us anything, it’s oversight by an independent oversight authority has the potential to divert a disaster. Index annuities are stock market products, plain and simple. As such, they deserve the same scrutiny given to all other registered products. I personally know insurance representatives that have given up their securities license to avoid possible NASD and SEC intervention. These reps prey on the elderly and unsophisticated investor with inappropriate products with enormous commissions, long surrender periods, and forced annuitization.
Left unchecked, this will be the next disaster to hit the financial services area, and it will help erode the confidence of the individual investor, and disproportionately affect elderly investors. Index annuities are far more complicated than any mutual fund, yet anyone with a simple life insurance license, with no knowledge of investments is allowed to sell them. Please change that now. This is an investment vehicle, please start treating it as such!
Thank you,
Tim Holsworth
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Tim Holsworth, CFP, CLU, ChFC
President
AHP Financial