Comments on: Avoiding Annuity Gimmicks, Amateurs, & Charlatans!

By: William Folkes

William Folkes — Sat, 03 May 2014 17:27:54 +0000

Excellent posting considering the topic Eric & Dick covered today. Not enough information here to comment specifically on your options. It is difficult to find a good annuity with an income rider that does provide a decent return above the annual step-up or roll-up. The problem you will find is that it is common to see restrictions in those contracts that will only allow a certain percentage to be invested in equity while the rest must be invested in fixed income. So currently, you would have 70% of your investments performing very well while the other 30% is creating a drag. Finding an annuity with an income rider that has open architecture (no restrictions) is very difficult to find but they are out there.

The investment options themselves on the equity side may also be mediocre, much like you find in many of the 401K plans. Again though, there are products out there that include a number of exceptional mutual funds as sub-account options.

One other problem you may run in to in many products is that you cannot maintain an income rider and an annual death benefit step-up on the same contract. All depends on what you are looking for but there are annuities out there that do allow both.

By: edward bard

edward bard — Sat, 03 May 2014 16:23:06 +0000

I cannot find a decent annuity product. The gimmicks are rampant. The returns are are low or not there.

What are my options? Thank you.

Edward B.

561-xxx-xxxx

By: Gib Chase

Gib Chase — Sat, 03 May 2014 12:16:04 +0000

I got invited to attend a dinner/talk on financial options in a town west of Boston. The two guys running the show also have a talk radio program on the same. I was looking for an annuity or financial option that would give by daughter and grandchildren a reasonable annual growth and protection of principal that they can’t get with banks, CDs or treasuries. An income stream was not of interest and I or my wife were not to be the beneficaries. Anyway I wan informed of this annuity from Security Benefit Ins. Company that provides a 7% annual roll up. What wasn’t initially said was that it is tied to an income withdrawal. Not what I wanted! Also, they asked if I had any annuities already and requested to review. I do own some Allianz products. They suggested closing and transferring the money into their recommended annuity. They also recommended instead of a transfer to just have the check made out directly to me rather than go through the normal transfer process — provided that my initial basis didn’t show a major gain. I had to be the policy owner and only my spouse was to be the primary beneficiary. So I was told. This didn’t address my original objective for my grandchildren andthere was no way that my daughter or children could access the money and then only the accumualative/surrender value upon death. Any income stream and the 7% was moot and not relavent. I was told that my daughter had to be 55-years old to be the policy owner and couldn’t be a beneficiary until/unless my spouse took over the policy. The way the contract was structured you would be hard pressed to recapture any initial investment of $50-$100K within a twenty year period if an income stream were to be selected. The entire matter was a disappointment and discouraging. The index tracking growth was capped and showed a very low accumulation over a ten to twenty year period. Yes they came across as nice guys but they didn’t have my best interest (or that of my grandchildren) in mind so it seems.