From: Ryan M. Luke |
To whom it may concern: What bearing does a consumer knowing how much money I will make on a transaction of variable annuities or mutual funds have on the importance of the decision to purchase or not? If the product is appropriate for the consumer and his/her needs to fulfill financial goals and dreams, how would knowing the amount that I make on the transaction help them in their decision making process? When I buy a car or a house, I have no NEED or RIGHT to know how much profit is being made. Having said that, if they had to disclose it to me, I would certainly be inclined to use that information to my advantage of getting a better price or discount as an incentive to buy. Last time I checked, that would be illegal and immoral to sell insurance or investment products in the same manner, would it not? What will stop customers from doing the same thing to us if they know that we are making $1,000 off of a proper, justified, and needed sale of a product? "Well Ryan, I will buy this variable annuity if you knock off $500 of your $1,000 commission" will be what we will face every day from people. Will I have the legal right to bargain with people and not lose my license and go to jail? If you are going to make us disclose this information, which has no bearing on a decision by the customer, except to potentially make them not want to take the appropriate steps or attempt to bargain with us, then you must give us the right to offer discounts and incentives to buy without jeopardizing our integrity, our morals, our licenses, and our profession as a whole. I truly believe that this is not possible or reasonable and, therefore, CAN NOT be allowed to happen. We shouldn't have to disclose the amount we make from these transactions. It makes no sense for the consumer, for us as sales people, or our profession in general to do so and if you pass this as "law", the only good that will come out of it will be the destruction of the Financial Services Industry. If people like me, who care about people like you, are not around to help you make the proper educated decisions, then your best bet is relying on what ever judgment you think you have and the government to bail you out when you realize your judgment was not correct. Good judgment comes from experience and experience comes from bad judgment. If you think that the majority of people have the financial resources to make enough bad judgments, to get the experience necessary to make good judgments, and in turn have enough money to live without help during the process and retirement, then I hope you have a very large home, because I will make sure to tell people I know that run out of money in their retirement to go and live with YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Best Regards, Ryan M. Luke |