Don’t let the sizzle fool you. You can get a fixed index annuity without an income rider. Why would you do that? Why pay a fee for a service you will never use?

Typically, you shouldn’t upgrade your annuity to a hybrid style unless you know you want the lifetime income **guarantee while still maintaining majority control.

A base FIA (fixed index annuity) offers the ability to grow based upon the performance of an index while not going backwards. Your principal is never at risk and to clear up a popular misconception – your money is never actually invested in the index itself. With a fixed index annuity, the insurance company assumes all investment risk and while you may be able to participate in the gains generated by an equities or commodities index your dollars were never invested in any of those securities.
Watch as the Annuity Guys® – Dick and Eric, report on the fixed index annuity to help you evaluate if this type of annuity would be a good fit for your portfolio.

**Guarantees, including optional benefits, are backed by the claims-paying ability of the issuer, and may contain limitations, including surrender charges, which may affect policy values. During this segment, Dick and Eric are referring to Fixed Annuities unless otherwise specified.

There are pros and cons to any financial product and fixed index annuities have their detraction’s, such as cap rate, participation rate, and surrender terms. But if you are looking for an option that allows for better than average safer interest growth with no investment risk, check out a fixed index annuity.

Worried about interest rates impacting your bond portfolio? Check out this article.

Fixed-index annuities as bonds alternative?

By Robert Klein at MarketWatch.com

If you haven’t noticed, bond interest rates have been inching up over the past year. The U.S. Treasury 10-year index hit a 52-week high of 2.83% on Friday, up 1.29%, or 84%, from the 52-week low of 1.54% on Aug. 31, 2012.

Given the fact that market prices of bonds move inversely with interest rate changes, increasing interest rates generally translates to decreasing bond prices. An example of this is the Barclays U.S. Aggregate Bond Trust, which, after increasing 7.84% in 2011 and 4.21% in 2012, is down 3.27% year-to-date as of Friday.

Recent bond interest rate increases, combined with the prospect for continued interest rate hikes, have gotten the attention of investors, resulting in reduced bondholdings in many cases. Replacement investments have included dividend stocks. While this has provided an alternative source of income, i.e., dividends, it has also resulted in increased equity risk exposure, which may prove to be more problematic than simply remaining in bonds.

Many investors in the past few years have discovered a different strategy for a portion of their bond portfolio that retains the fixed income nature of bonds while offering protection from bond and equity market declines. It’s called fixed-index annuities, or “FIAs.”

 What is a fixed-index annuity?

A fixed-index annuity is a fixed annuity that offers a minimum **guaranteed interest rate and potential for higher earnings than traditional fixed annuities based on the performance of one or more stock market indexes. When purchased with non-retirement plan funds, unlike bonds, earnings grow tax-deferred. If a minimum **guaranteed withdrawal benefit (“MGWB”) isn’t built into the contract, a FIA can be paired with an income rider to give the annuitant(s) the ability to activate a lifetime income stream.

There are two types of FIA’s — single premium and flexible premium. A single-premium FIA is a one-time investment whereas a flexible-premium FIA allows for subsequent investments after your initial investment. With both types, you need to allocate your premium, or investment, between a fixed account and one or more indexing strategies. The fixed account pays a fixed rate of return for one or more years that’s generally higher than a similar-duration CD.

Indexing strategies provide the opportunity to earn interest based on the performance of a defined stock market index each contract year, with the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index being the most prevalent offering. Unlike a direct investment in an index where you participate in gains as well as losses, there are two basic differences when you allocate funds to an indexing strategy within an FIA:

1. If the index’s return is negative, no loss is posted to your account.

2. If the index’s return is positive, interest is credited to your account subject to a cap.

In other words, unlike bond and equity investments, you won’t participate in losses, however, you also won’t fully participate in gains to the extent that the performance of a particular indexing strategy exceeds that of a defined cap.

When do fixed-index annuities make sense as a bondholding alternative?

FIA’s offer several distinct advantages over bonds, including protection from market declines, elimination of bond default risk, participation in positive performance of stock market indexes, tax deferral in non-retirement accounts, sustainable lifetime income with a MGWB or income rider, investment management simplification, and elimination of investment management fees on the portion of a managed portfolio that’s invested in FIA’s.

They aren’t without their disadvantages, however. [Read more from MarketWatch]

Transcription:

Dick: Hi I’m Dick.

Eric: And I’m Eric and we’re the annuity guys; and today we’re choosing a fixed indexed annuity.

Dick: Yes, and Eric that’s referred to all over the internet as a hybrid annuity.

Eric: No, no…

Dick: Nowadays, nowadays it is.

Eric: Fixed indexed annuity without an income rider is the purest sense. Now, to get a hybrid style you got to have the income rider.

Dick: Well, that’s where we tend to talk in terms of hybrid combining a whole bunch of things into one annuity and mostly its marketing hype… mostly it’s just a sizzle to sell the annuity talking about hybrid; but it is in all fairness, hybrid does mean the combination of several elements into one thing. So, I would say that it is a hybrid in that sense but let’s get into the specifics of the fixed indexed annuity and what’s good about it?

Eric: Yes and I think usually the first thing I start with when someone asked me… its breaking down what’s an index? You know, really when you talk about indexing for an annuity, the most common one out there is typically are the S&P 500.

Dick: Dow Jones…

Eric: Now most people say “I’m invested in the market right?”

Dick: No…

Eric: What do you mean? It’s like an indexed mutual fund^{^} or…

Dick: And that’s the thing, it’s challenging to explain the folks is that you really are never invested in the market. You’re using that index just as an indicator.

Eric: It’s a benchmark…

Dick: A benchmark to know how much interest will be credited to your account. So, this is a completely safe, investment free product..

Eric: All risk-free.

Dick: Yes, yes it is.

Eric: And I always laugh because what I try to do is explain that you know; we can use the weather as that same index and say we start with the this time at eight o’clock today and at eight o’clock tomorrow we’re going to look at the same time… and if we’re up to two degrees, we’re going to credit you two percent. You can just use any kind a benchmark. In fact, there are indexes out there that use interest rates…

Dick: Commodities.

Eric: Commodities, gold.

Dick: Right. So, if somebody comes to you with an annuity, with this amazing new index; don’t get too excited because first of all even if that particular index could soar, you’re going to be limited on the upside up of it. That’s how these indexed fixed indexed annuities work is they give you the upside but they give you no downside. So you don’t get all of the upside.

Eric: And really, if you kind of peel back the layers of how an indexed annuity really works; the insurance company has something usually that it can purchase options on. They’re looking at options contracts something they can buy for pennies on the dollar;

Dick: If it doesn’t hit, it expires and throw it away; and when it hits…

Eric: It’s very good for everybody.

Dick: It brings some money in.

Eric: And they are willing to share some of those benefits.

Dick: Right.

Eric: So, like you were describing, what’s the negatives here? You don’t get the full upside typically that you’re going to get from a market participation; if you were just truly invested in one of those yourself but then also the inverse of that is you don’t go back…

Dick: Completely safe, completely secure. And when we say risk free, we have to qualify that a little bit. What we’re really saying is, it is a market risk free; and you know, there’s risk in anything we do. If it’s a US Treasury, there’s risk in it. So, in terms of measuring risk, it’s one of the least risky things you can do with your money.

Eric: Right. In explaining some other things that limits some of the upside; this is part of the conversation that if you ever look at an indexed style annuity, that there boards caps typically associated which is usually…

Dick: Limits your upside.

Eric: You may say you got the S&P 500 index with a cap of 5 percent. Well, that typically means the most you’re going to make in a year is

5 percent – so that’s your cap. The market may make up to twenty percent while you’re only going to get up to your cap.

Dick: Yes

Eric: And, there’s the participation rate which is how much of that index…

Dick: So, that if the market goes up 20 percent and I have a 10 percent participation rate, I’m at ten-percent of what the market went up or spread which in that case you agree that the first portion of what’s earned; it could be one percent or 5 percent, goes to the insurance company or is not paid to you. Let’s put it that way. And so consequently, you get anything above that. If you had a 10 percent spread, the market did 20 percent; you get 10 percent.

Eric: And those are really kind of need aspects to say… I can still participate in the upside I know I’m not going to go backwards. And as long as there’s no fee associated with the contract, you’ll never go… you never will back up and that’s what’s very attractive. And who would be interested in these types of annuities? It’s usually somebody who wants some growth but they’re just not willing to go backwards. If we look at the charts over the last ten years; and this is where indexed annuity companies are really putting those charts out, because if you remember back in 2008 when that market went boom…

Dick: Or 2009.

Eric: Well guess what your indexed annuities do?

Dick: No loss.

Eric: We did not go back thirty-eight percent…

Dick: A nice place to start from when the market started coming back up… stair steps up.

Eric: And that’s what’s nice. It locks in typically it resets if it’s an annual reset. Every year you started that new benchmark and all you do is…

Dick: Now Eric, one of the things; I am going to switch our subject here on this a little bit – and that is; that we see all the time and it kind of gets our higher up a little bit, 8 percent returns you know on indexed annuities; and pretty misleading is it?

Eric: Well, and that’s when people are typically selling the rider; they’re selling the piece that you’re going to pay a fee for usually, but it’s that sizzle portion that people want because they want that market-style return. So, eight percent **guaranteed… for future income

Dick: Or income account – it’s a kind of a virtual type account, does what it’s supposed to do – an excellent feature, excellent benefit, but consumers are generally confused and misled many times by that statement of getting an eight percent return on their money; safe, secure, **guaranteed; when that’s just factually not true or at least not the whole picture.

Eric: In effect, most people – and this is the conversation you have to have – that if you’re not looking at FIA or fixed indexed annuity for income you can buy it without the income rider. You don’t need that income rider…

Dick: No fees.

Eric: No fees, no charges. Now you’re not going to get that **guaranteed roll up for future income but you still have the option of receiving lifetime income from these annuities because you can annuitize.

Dick: Annuitize, right. So, when we start looking at the fixed indexed annuity and the benefits that that annuity will give as compared to other annuities – variable annuities^#, immediate annuities. We start to look at we’ve got the upside; we’ve got safety and **guarantees. So the upside would be kind of similar to the variable annuity^# that you’ve got some upside here. You don’t have the unlimited upside of the variable but you do have upside for a little better than normal growth should be; and then you’ve got the safety and security of the fixed annuity because there really is no investment for a fixed index annuity. Income – you’ve got the potential of what the immediate annuity has in two ways – you can annuitize or you can use the rider for lifetime income; and the beauty of using the rider for the lifetime income is back to what we call majority control of your money where you can actually not get your lump sum away like the immediate annuity, keep control of that money either to go on to the heirs or for a future use if there was an emergency.

Eric: So, I think we’ve broken down the fixed indexed annuity giving you some tidbits as to how the hybrid might be a part or add on to that that base chassis. I think we’ve got it covered all.

Dick: We’ve done it. Thank you.

The post Choosing a Fixed Index Annuity appeared first on Annuity Guys®.

Be aware that:

•  Cap rates on IUL policies are about 3 to 5 times higher than those on index annuities;
•  There are IUL policies which allow you to add a rider that will **guarantee lifetime income;
•  IUL policies if configured properly can generate a tax-free income stream;
•  An IUL may NOT be the right choice for your **guaranteed lifetime income…

Dick and Eric discuss the differences between index annuities and index life insurance; both have become increasingly popular for retirement planning.

**Guarantees, including optional benefits, are backed by the claims-paying ability of the issuer, and may contain limitations, including surrender charges, which may affect policy values. During this segment, Dick and Eric are referring to Fixed Annuities unless otherwise specified.

Indexed Universal Life Insurance Policies: The Perfect Option for Professionals and Business Owners

by Timothy R. Fussell

For a professional such as a doctor, attorney or CPA, the Indexed Universal Life policy is perfect for your retirement needs. Often as a professional, you operate as a P.A. being taxed as a sole proprietor, an S Corporation or a C Corporation, and under the tax codes you are limited to retirement account choices. The SEP IRA, Solo-401k or the UNI-401k, all allow you to save on a tax-deferred basis; but the maximum contribution limit is still the same $49,000.00.

Now let’s explore the IUL (indexed universal life) and why it is a better choice. As a professional of these types, your income level is much higher than average, so you max out your contribution very early in the year. With the IUL, there is no limit on how much money you can contribute—the money still grows tax-deferred, but with a several advantages.

Now comes the great part! In the event of a business need, the money in your tax-deferred accumulation account can be used, through interest-free loans, for the purchase of new equipment, to expand the practice, or just to carry you through a tough time. At retirement the money is paid to you in the form of tax-free loans against your account value. The income would be a lifetime income with of loss in a down market, and at the end of the income, your death, the face amount of the life insurance policy would still go to your heirs as a tax-free death benefit. The tax-free death benefit would, at any time, be the security to your family that their lifestyle would continue in the same manner to which they had become accustomed—a **guarantee the retirement account cannot promise. If, through a consultation with your insurance professional, it is determined that your life insurance needs exceed the desired amount of contribution in the IUL, a term life insurance policy can be added to meet your life insurance needs at a lower cost.

A business owner has many of the same needs but also faces many different challenges. The IUL is even more exciting in these cases. All of the benefits listed above still apply to the business owner, but if you are an S Corporation, you could have the option of making the premium contributions as a draw against the profits of the corporation and avoid the self-employment tax/social security tax, which could add to the benefits of the IUL.  That alone is a 13.3% tax savings!

To a business owner with a partner or partners, another issue is presented that makes an IUL a perfect choice. Should a partner/partners die, you would have the need for a Buy-Sell Agreement to determine the value of the buy-out of the deceased partner/partners. The best way to fund the buy-sell agreement is through life insurance policies. The buy-sell agreement would either be a cross purchase buy-sell or a stock purchase buy-sell. These differ based on your corporate structure. Your insurance professional should have a working knowledge of the two types of agreements and work with your CPA and attorney to make sure they are set up correctly. [Read more…]

Annuity Guys® Video Transcript:

Eric: Today, we’re examining indexed universal life and how it would compare to perhaps a hybrid annuity or annuities in general.

Dick: Right. First of all, let’s say, “Thank you,” Eric, to Steve.

Eric: Steve up in Wisconsin for submitting his question. Please continue to submit your questions, and we’ll examine them as the weeks go on. So for those of you that submitted questions.

Dick: We’ve got some already.

Eric: We’ve got some in the hopper, and those of you that have questions, keep them coming.

Dick: Today, in comparing indexed universal life and it’s also called equity indexed universal life or EIUL, but the more technical, correct term would be IUL, very safety-oriented product. It’s a life insurance product and there are a lot of good comparisons we can do with that and annuities, so why don’t we just start off talking about the life insurance part, the IUL.

Eric: We don’t talk about life insurance too much here, so let’s talk about one, why someone would even compare in the sense of I’m going to think of it in terms of, if I’m not going to select an annuity for retirement income would I select an equity or in this case, an indexed universal life policy.

Dick: Or if I was looking at growth compared to… Well, I’m just saying if I was comparing the two for growth. Okay, maybe I’m getting– go ahead.

Eric: You’re good at jumping ahead.

Dick: Jumping ahead of you.

Eric: Darn it. So what we want is trying to grow the policy to the largest amount, so that we can use it for a retirement supplement. Because, really here we are talking about the living benefits of the IUL, in this case, being able to use it as a supplement for retirement. Now what it has is the ability to have a double digit cap compared to with the low, single digit caps, of today on the annuity world or on the hybrid annuity.

Dick: And that’s large Eric, because when we look at the caps on most annuities, the fixed index annuities which are referred to as the hybrid annuity, the caps are down below 5.0%. Some substantially down in the 2.0-2.5-3.0% range, so when we start talking about the IUL, now we’re looking at 10-12-15% caps, even.

Eric: Right, so we have growth potential.

Dick: Potential, right.

Eric: Because here we’re talking about index games, there is not that **guaranteed rollup side. So on the hybrid annuity side you’ve got those income riders that have some of those **guarantees.

Dick: Contractual **guarantees for the future income.

Eric: So that is the one comparison on the caps side. Now what are we going to use for withdrawals on the life insurance side? How are we going to get money out of this?

Dick: Well, if we take actual withdrawals, we’re going to pay taxes.

Eric: Taxes?

Dick: So we don’t want to take withdrawals.

Eric: Well, then why would we even consider this?

Dick: And when we compare it with an annuity, when you take withdrawals out of an annuity, you pay taxes. But there is a really nice aspect to the IUL, and that is you can borrow out of it, and it is just like the old, traditional whole life policies you can borrow out of it and not pay taxes on it and IRS has allowed that. On borrowed money, any time you borrow money from a bank or anywhere, there is no tax paid on borrowed money.

Eric: Now do I have to pay this money back?

Dick: Actually, technically you do.

Eric: But when do you have to pay it back?

Dick: Through your death benefit.

Eric: And that’s the key element here. It’s really part of the death benefit and that’s what makes it, basically you’re going to pay it off at some point in time.

Dick: Right.

Eric: Those dollars that you’ve accrued are going to get paid back at the time, when you’re gone basically, as that death benefit is disbursed.

Dick: Right. One of the things that I want to bring out is that, if you want to use the IUL folks, you cannot use your qualified funds or your IRA money, unless you’re willing to just go ahead and pay the tax on it and move it over. Then you have to do a real analysis on how that might…

Eric: Just as a reminder neither of us are accountants nor tax professionals so we would advise you to consult your tax professional when it comes.

Dick: Although, we work with this every day and constantly talk about the taxes.

Eric: So now is the government going to come in and take my tax benefit away?

Dick: Well, that is a question we are frequently asked. I am asked that on The Raw, I’m asked that on life insurance or life insurance that’s being used in more of a retirement account type situation, and the answer to that is, it can happen. It could happen. However, if we go back and look at other times where Congress has stepped in or the government…

Eric: Screwed us?

Dick: … took advantage of us? Typically, they have grandfathered us, so that if we are in a situation where, in good faith…

Eric: Great grandfather’s covered, I get screwed.

Dick: So if we operated in good faith and set this up, and did it under the current tax provisions and laws and by the way, this is the IRC, Internal Revenue Code 7702 provision same type of thing that the IRC 401k, same area that comes from, it’s the 7702. So if you see the 7702 Plan that’s what they’re talking about.

Eric: He wants to be an accountant.

Dick: It’s very legitimate, it’s very real and it works and a lot of professional people use this, because they can put large amounts of money in. They keep their principal safe. They lock in their gains. They’ve got annual reset. There are some wonderful things about it, but Eric, who’s it going to work best for and at what stage?

Eric: You’ve got to be in your accumulation stage it’s probably the easiest way. So young professionals perhaps, I’ve heard it called a Big Boy Roth, because you can dump oodles and oodles of money into it and let it grow. There is not a limitation to the contribution amount. Now they have to be dialed in the right way and that’s one of the things that…

Dick: A little secret.

Eric: Yeah, strategy wise, usually you have the smallest amount of death benefit that you can have on life insurance.

Dick: Which means you pay the least amount for insurance and the agent makes the least amount on…

Eric: … commission. So you can see how there could be a confliction amongst the person that might be trying to talk to you about this, so usually we see only larger clients.

Dick: I like that word, though, Eric, confliction

Eric: Confliction. I’ve got an ointment that takes care of that.

Dick: Let’s trademark that.

Eric: So yes when your conflicted agent comes in and says…

Dick: Yes, we need to make sure you’ve got plenty of life insurance. Let’s not go too far on this, because there are times when a lot of life insurance is good for heirs and different things. But the way to make an IUL really work well, and again back that original question I had posed and that was, what stage, and I am just going to go ahead and answer it.

Eric: Say 15 to 20 years.

Dick: Yeah, 40 to 50-years-old, that you can really let it sit.

Eric: You’re 15 to 20 years from retirement. You have to have at least that amount of time really, for it to really function well and that’s the key, I think. Because at that point in time, it starts to get the extra dividends, the extra pieces, the extra credits that can make it really hum. Then you can have a rider on there that has a loan provision for life, so you can treat it very much like an annuity, but you have to have the forethought to have done these 15-20 years before retirement.

Dick: Correct.

Eric: So if they haven’t done that, income **guarantee-wise.

Dick: It’s really based more on potential. Yes, now let’s talk briefly, because this is a long video, let’s talk briefly about the annuity and why the annuity would have certain aspects…

Eric: Advantages?

Dick: … and advantages over the IUL, because the IUL is pretty cool the way it works.

Eric: They’re very cool. I love them. I would say **guarantees though, especially **guaranteed lifetime income, for someone that’s nearing or close to retirement is the key. I don’t want to say it’s the singular piece, but it is the first and foremost.

Dick: Because with the IUL I have to have potential for growth, I have the potential for growth, and I have to get the growth through that potential, but with the annuity I have a contractual **guarantee.

Eric: Yes, and that’s the key. We’ve talked about the hybrid aspect, you also have other annuities such as immediate annuities, where you’re going to have payouts of your principal plus, **guaranteed for life. Now the insurance aspect without a rider, you could actually run out of basically, enough account value, because you have to keep the insurance in place long enough to die, because if you don’t die with any insurance left, you haven’t paid off your loans.

Dick: And probably, Eric the best advice that we can give you, beyond the general information we’ve just given you is work with an adviser who really understands how to compare these two, and, maybe it’s not one or the other, maybe it’s some of both.

Eric: Yeah, could be. It depends on your end goal. What do you want these dollars to do for you? So work backwards and work with an expert.

Dick: Steve, thank you for this question, and those of you out there who have questions, we’ve probably caused you in this video to have some more questions. Feel free to send those in to us and we look forward to answering them.

Eric: That’s right. As you can see, we’ll tackle just about any question as long, as it relates somewhat, to our annuities world. Thank you very much.

Dick: Thank you.

The post Annuities vs (IUL) Indexed Universal Life – How do they compare? appeared first on Annuity Guys®.

Why would we start a discussion about annuity earnings with apples and oranges? When people start looking at annuities, they invariably want to compare them to mutual fund^{^}s or other securities. Commonly, they will start the discussion about the merits of a particular annuity by asking about the “upside” or growth potential. Let us state this clearly – thinking of annuities as accumulation products by comparing them to securities is just plain wrong in the vast majority of scenarios. So let’s not mix apples and oranges.

Do annuities have growth potential? Sure, but do not decide to purchase an annuity expecting high single digit or double-digit gains, especially with today’s economic conditions.

Annuities are safety and security products that should be viewed in the light of their **guarantees. Dick and Eric examine what annuities really earn in this weeks video.

**Guarantees, including optional benefits, are backed by the claims-paying ability of the issuer, and may contain limitations, including surrender charges, which may affect policy values. During this segment, Dick and Eric are referring to Fixed Annuities unless otherwise specified.

In addition to your questions, this weeks inspiration came from…

Behind the indexed annuity curtain

By Stan Haithcock at MarketWatch.com

We all saw the original Wizard of Oz movie when they went to see the powerful Oz and were totally in awe until the dog, Toto, pulled the curtain back to show that it was just some goober running a sound board.

That curtain needs to be pulled back on indexed annuities as well because “the show” is getting to be a little overwhelming on the lunch seminar circuit and with the increasingly aggressive online annuity promoters.

First of all, let me explain the details of an indexed annuity (also called an equity-indexed annuity, fixed-index annuity, hybrid annuity). An indexed annuity is a fixed annuity with a call option on an index, usually the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index. The vast majority of the call options are one year in length, but can be as long as five years. The S&P 500 index represents over 90% of the index option choices even though other index selections (Dow, Nasdaq, etc.) can be found in some product offerings. These call options allow you limited participation in the upside of the index (not including dividends).

When indexed annuities were developed a couple of decades ago, they were designed to compete with CD returns, not market returns. They were never put on the planet to be a pure growth product, even though they are sold that way by agents and the online annuity spammers. Realistic and historical (yes agents, these are also called facts) return expectations for indexed annuities should be around 3% to 5% annually. Those annual gains, if any, are locked in at the contract anniversary date, and then a new index option starts.

Please understand that indexed annuities are complex products, and the majority of agents are unable (or unwilling) to properly explain them and usually just focus on a few sizzle points. Below I have listed some of the positive and negatives of indexed annuities and where they might work within your portfolio.

Positives

• Used with Income Riders for target date income planning

This is how I use indexed annuities for my clients. I also attach contractual death benefits or confinement care benefits when that is the ultimate goal.

• Downside protection

Because your potential gains are attached to a call option, if the markets go down and the call option expires worthless at your contract anniversary date, then you will not lose any money. Agents use the phrase “Zero is your hero.” That’s a pretty goofy way to put it.

• Gains locked in

This is a very good feature of indexed annuities. If you have gains from your index option, that gain is locked in permanently, never to go below that amount. Just remember that your upside potential is very limited, regardless of what your agent tells you.

• Possibility to capture market dips

As an example, if the S&P 500 index goes from 1,300 to 900 in one year, your index option for that year would not credit any gains, but you would start the next index option year at 900 on the S&P 500.

• Higher actuarial payout for income

Most indexed annuities, when used for lifetime income purposes with attached income riders, have a higher actuarial percentage payout than similarly structured variable annuities^#. [Read More…]

Annuity Guys® Video Transcript:

Dick: Today we want to talk about annuities, and we want to get all the hype out of the way, Eric.

Eric: The hype? There’s hype in annuities? Oh my gosh.

Dick: Well, this was inspired by Richard out in Massachusetts, one of our folks that had used the website and we had given him a referral. He sent in a question that basically said, “You know, I’ve been looking at different blogs on the Internet, and they’ve talked about the return, and the annualized return doesn’t seem to be that high.” And that’s true, isn’t it?

Eric: This is where people have the challenge. When they first start looking at annuities, they’re coming from a world where they’ve been focused on accumulation.

Dick: Right.

Eric: When we look at the mutual fund^{^} industry, everybody talks about, “I did this return, 20%, 30%.” “Oh, I beat the S&P.” That’s the accumulation world. The focus there is on numbers, the return I’m getting.

Dick: Exactly. Right. Is there a little hype in that world?

Eric: Oh there’s a lot of hype. You know, glossy pages with the charts that go like this. Oh my gosh.

Dick: Well, and we can look at DALBAR studies that talk about the individual investor and what they actually do earn, and it’s down below 5%, considerably below 5%. So it’s all over the board.

Eric: But must people have been conditioned to focus on the return.

Dick: Of accumulated money. Right.

Eric: Yes. I’m making this much. I’m making this much. I’m getting this much. That’s not what an annuity is about. It’s not about taking and trying to grow the asset so much as preserve it, because you’ve already done the saving part.

Dick: You’ve already done the work. You’ve built the nest egg.

Eric: What’s the goal of saving? It’s future spending. Saving is really, in this case, future spending.

Dick: Right. So would it be fair, Eric, to say that an annuity is more about security and cash flow?

Eric: Yes. Yes, it would. I would say that would be fair.

Dick: So if we were to boil it down and just get rid of all the hype, and when I say “hype,” I mean the way its presented, it may not really be hype, but it does sound good. We talk about 7% rollups on the income account and 8%. W talk about 5% payouts and 6% payouts. But if we really got down to the life expectancy and drawing the income off an annuity . . . well, first of all, let’s just talk about an immediate annuity. What would the real internal rate of return be on an immediate annuity overall?

Eric: One, two percent.

Dick: Max. One to two percent.

Eric: My thing, when we start talking about annuities, and we’re doing it now, talking about rate of return, first question I have to ask you is: When are you going to die? Then I’ll tell you what your return is going to be.

Dick: Exactly. The insurance company has this figured out statistically, and they know that, overall, your rate of return on this annuity in a statistically generalized averaged sense is going to be in the neighborhood of a couple of percent on an immediate annuity. Right now, with today’s rate, even a little less than that. Yet billions and billions of dollars of immediate annuities are sold. Why do people do that?

Eric: Safety, security, cash flow. We’re going to repeat ourselves a lot here. If you’re going to be focused on return, don’t go here.

Dick: Exactly. I know we both have got a lot to say here. But one thing that comes to my mind is all of the sure bet things that are out there in the investment world, the things that you are told you cannot lose, such as Enron, Lehman Brothers. What are some others?

Eric: Well, GM was always the . . . I grew up in a world where they always said buy GM stock, and you never have to worry.

Dick: Right. Enron? Madoff? So these are things that all look good, but those are all followed by this caveat of past performance is no indicator of future results. We tend to gloss over that and say, “Oh, they just say that.” But that’s there for a reason.

Eric: Right. But it’s a risk-reward aspect. You’re chasing the reward there and are willing to take some of that risk. What we talk about when we look at annuities, we want to take that risk and diminish it significantly so that you have that safety, you have that **guarantee.

Dick: Yes.

Eric: And that’s what we’re focused on with annuities.

Dick: And that’s not for all of a client’s money.

Eric: Not all of your money. That’s right. Asset allocation, spreading the baskets out.

Dick: It’s a further diversification, another layer of protection and safety completely. And now if we get into the very popular indexed or hybrid annuity, there are a lot of things to talk about in terms of that income rollup and how it gets your income up to a certain level by a certain age, which would not be **guaranteed if you were in the market. You maybe couldn’t take that big of an income without depleting your principal much faster. So there is that aspect. But if we just talked about the overall rate of return of that hybrid annuity, we took it like some of these guys do, and they’re very good at their math and their spreadsheets. They spread it out and they show if you start a guy out at 60 years old and you defer him for 5 years or 10 years, with this 7% rollup, you turn it on, and he lives to age 90. What’s his return going to be?

Eric: Like two, three, four, five percent, perhaps. That would be on the high end.

Dick: On the real high client.

Eric: It depends on when you start.

Dick: Two percent on the low and maybe, like you say, four to five on the extreme high, but more like two to there percent would be like the max. They’re are part of the rule.

Eric: Part of what we’re looking at is we’re looking at pieces in today’s environment. Caps right now are structured around what today’s caps are.

Dick: Right.

Eric: So when we’re looking at things, we like to today’s numbers. Now, we expect caps will increase in the future. Can we **guarantee it? No.

Dick: No.

Eric: And that’s what, when we work with annuities, we really like to talk about **guarantees. Because if you’re satisfied with the **guarantee, then anything above and beyond is good.

Dick: That’s right.

Eric: And the same thing is true on the indexing side of these components. Look at what the **guarantee is. That indexing component offers a little bit of a bump. But, focus on the **guarantee.

Dick: Right. Well, folks, I think for today’s topic we want to thank Richard. Thank you Richard for that good question. Eric and I added something at the first of the year that you may not have seen on the blog site. So when you’re through with this, if you’d like, you can actually ask us a question.

Eric: That’s right. We’ve put it out there in a couple different spots. We encourage you . . . as we come up with topics, sometimes it’s nice to know what you want to actually hear about.

Dick: Right. We tried to dispel the hype here and get down to the real rate of return is and then talk about the real reason that you do an annuity and choose an annuity.

Eric: No hype, just answers.

Dick: Thank you.

The post What do Annuities Really Earn? No Hype… appeared first on Annuity Guys®.

What makes a Hybrid or Index Annuity better than a standard fixed annuity with an income rider? Answer: the opportunity to participate in the potential upside of index gains that can exceed the interest earned by a fixed interest only annuity.

The **guarantees may not be “sexy” but they form the foundation of why someone should consider a hybrid annuity. We all like the “potential” to do better — Dick and Eric tackle the moving parts of a Hybrid Annuity in this weeks second segment of this two-part series.

**Guarantees, including optional benefits, are backed by the claims-paying ability of the issuer, and may contain limitations, including surrender charges, which may affect policy values. During this segment, Dick and Eric are referring to Fixed Annuities unless otherwise specified.

Enjoy our short Fog Lifter video…

“The Power of Indexing and Contractual Income Guarantees”

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Are Hybrid Annuities too Complicated?

A common complaint leveled at hybrid annuities is that they are too complicated and have too many moving parts. The Annuity Guys®, Dick and Eric, discuss why many folks in the media and investment world like to hobby-horse this point while missing the real reasons why these financial products work so well as a foundational allocation in thousands of retirement portfolios. The secret is “the non-moving parts otherwise known as contractual **guarantees.”

Contractual Guarantees – absolute **guarantees, no-moving parts.

Hybrid/Fixed Index Annuities – allow for upside potential of specified moving parts in addition to absolute contractual **guarantees.

Income Rider – addendum to an annuity contract **guaranteeing a future lifetime income plus additional benefits in some income riders (this is a contractual **guarantee).

Features, Benefits, and Facts:

1. Annuity Owner Remains in majority control of the annuity’s cash account value during the surrender term and has 100% control after the surrender term.
2. Full account value of the cash account passes on to heirs with no surrender or penalty charge.
3. Guaranteed growth in deferral **guaranteeing a minimum future income. Example: Initial Premium $100,000 + 5% bonus **guaranteed growth of 7.2 percent deferred for ten years = $210,000 income account value producing a of $12,600 per year at age 70 with a single life payout.
4. Payout percentages from the income account are based on age and a single or joint income need. Example: age seventy single payout 6 percent or joint payout 5.5 percent
5. Fees for riders can be based on the cash or income account value and are charged to the cash account. Fees typically range from half of one percent (.5%) to one and a quarter percent (1.25%). This does not reduce the **guaranteed growth of the income account.
6. May have a death benefit allowing the income account if it is larger than the cash account to be distributed to heirs over a five-year period.
7. May have an increasing income as an inflation hedge.
8. May have a Long Term Care Benefit.

Index Strategy Moving Parts:

(Index examples: *S&P 500, *Dow Jones Industrial, *Trader Vic (Commodities), *Barclays Capital Aggregate US Bond, and literally any third-party index may be specified as a measure for crediting interest).

[Read More…]

Annuity Guys® Video Transcript:

Eric: Today, we’re going to talk about hybrid annuities. Do they have too many moving parts? Sounds like a flashback to maybe a previous episode.

Dick: Like one last week that we said ‘are they too complicated?’

Eric: This time, we talked about at the very end, all the moving parts. Now we’re going to get a little bit more detail as to, do they have too many moving parts?

Dick: That’s a good question, and I think that some folks would say, yes, it’s too complicated. There are too many moving parts. I think that you have to really weigh over who’s saying it and why they’re saying it; what their motive is.

Eric: Yeah. The first thing we should start out is where we started last week, in saying, why does somebody buy an annuity to begin with? It’s contractual to **guarantees.

Dick: Right. Exactly!

Eric: Safety, security, predictability. That’s why we like the hybrid annuities, is for those contractual **guarantees.

Dick: The moving parts, as we discussed last week folks, the moving parts are those things that are in addition to the contractual **guarantees; so those are the potential of the annuity. If you can be satisfied, and this is what we do with our clients, we help them to see where the contractual **guarantees actually do meet all of their concerns and their objections. Then if they can get some additional potential on top of that, then that’s a win-win.

Eric: Right. Let’s start with the base here. Typically, we’ve got this fixed indexed annuity as the base.

Dick: Right. That’s our chassis.

Eric: That’s our chassis. What then goes into making a fixed indexed annuity a hybrid annuity?

Dick: Typically, it will be an income **guarantee, and that income **guarantee will give a lot of different benefits, primarily knowing what your income is going to be at some point in the future that will help to offset inflation and know that you’ve got some type of increasing income at some point in time.

Eric: Right. We talk about that income rider quite a bit because of what it offers. It’s one of those things that’s attractive to people because they remain in majority control.  We’ll go into detail in the article about what majority control means. It’s also a way of taking assets and being able to pass it on to a beneficiary or heirs.

Dick: Yes. It’s not like the immediate annuity where you give the lump sum away. There’s a count value.

Eric: Too often, people want the annuity, but they don’t want to give up that control.

Dick: Correct.

Eric: That’s what that hybrid aspect brings to this chassis.

Dick: It does.

Eric: Payout percentages, as good, better than . . .

Dick: Payout percentages, as compared to an immediate annuity, if you’re starting an immediate annuity today and you’re starting a hybrid annuity today, the payout percentage will typically be a little bit less. The beauty of it is, the immediate annuity pretty much has to be started within 12 months of the time that you’ve signed up or been approved for your immediate annuity. However, with a hybrid annuity, the idea of deferral says that it’s going to pay out a lot more at some point in time.

Eric: Right. If you’re just looking for the most money you can get right now and you don’t care about anything else, then look at an immediate annuity.

Eric: If you’re wanting flexibility plus those **guarantees, that’s where the hybrid comes in.

Dick: Not only that, but there situations where the immediate annuity isn’t that much more.

Dick: Folks are more interested in that account value, if they don’t use it all up, going on to the heirs.

Eric: Right. That’s been one of the biggest reasons people are drawn toward the hybrids. The income rider tends to be the first piece that we highlight. Is it a moving part?

Dick: No. That’s what’s good about the income rider, is that it is a contractual **guarantee. That is part of that chassis that is **guaranteed.

Eric: I would say, if you’re looking at a fixed indexed annuity, what makes it a hybrid is, again, is adding that income rider component, that **guarantee of income in deferral. Basically, you’re building that account base in deferral.

Dick: Another aspect that lends itself to the hybrid aspect of the annuity is the idea that you can get some upside potential without the downside risk. You’ve got a little bit of that variable annuity^# flair to it with that. That’s where the confusion tends to come in.

Eric: Yeah. We’ve talked about this before, too. People will call up and we’ll talk to them and say, “I’m interested in a variable annuity^#.” In the mindset of somebody, the variable aspect is because it has the potential of having varying rates of return.

Dick: Right, some increased potential.

Eric: Right. In this case, an indexed annuity has varying rates of potential, sometimes based off of, basically, those indexed components.

Dick: In the early days, Eric, of indexed annuities and what we now call hybrid annuities a lot, they were sold and people purchased them, or wanted them, based on these indexes that did have all of this fluctuation and movement in them. The reason for it was because it did protect the downside, it did give them upside, and the fact of the matter is, there have been many time periods when this type of an annuity has out-performed the stock market, but it was never intended to do that in the first place.

Eric: We’ll tell you right now, if your intent is to go out there and beat the market, don’t buy one.

Dick: Don’t buy one.

Eric: That’s not the purpose for a hybrid annuity.

Dick: It’s possible that you can do it.

Eric: Over a period of time.

Dick: But it’s not the reason. It’s not the purpose.

Eric: Right. Because what you’re trying to do with a hybrid is limit your downside.

Eric: You’re taking away that downside risk of being in the market because your principal is protected.

Dick: Exactly. Eric, we’re not doing a very good job of getting to our list here.

Eric: I was going to say, we’re going to get to the second point here very soon. It’s talking about some of the moving parts that are truly involved in the indexing components.

Eric: Dick’s done an excellent job of laying out an article here, so if you haven’t had enough time to watch us, you’ll see below, or in the links below.

Dick: Read it more in-depth.

Eric: We’ve got some additional details. Caps.

Dick: Caps, okay. My cap’s hanging right there. Let’s tie the caps into; first of all, what’s an index? Most of you folks understand that when we talk about an index, this could be any type of index. It could be an index . . . let’s use the popular ones.

Eric: S&P, NASDAQ.

Dick: Dow Jones, The Trader Vic’s. You could use a gold index. You could use a bond index; any degree of creativity.

Eric: Exactly. The index could be literally the temperature outside each day. It’s a benchmark on which you can measure something. The most popular ones are those that are tied to the stock market.

Dick: They do buy call options on these indexes, so that is the purpose, why we choose an index. When we look at the caps, folks, if the market goes up 10% in a given year, and your cap is 3% or 4%, which is about where caps are now. We have some exceptions, where caps are higher, but somewhere in that 3% to 4% range, market goes up 10%, how much are they going to get, Eric?

Eric: If the cap’s 3%, you’re going to get 3%.  That’s the limiting factor. You have no downside risk. If the market’s down 10%; 0. You’ll hear a lot of people talk, “Zero is your hero,” because you don’t have that backslide in case you had multiple down years. You don’t have to worry about recovering from a backslide. The worst that’s going to happen is that you stay on a level plane.

Dick: Right. One of the things that we didn’t really touch on, which I will just drop back to for a second here and then move on, that is one the income rider. Typically, that will have somewhere in the neighborhood of maybe a 7% **guarantee; 6%, 7%, we’ve even seen 8% for some time periods, which was a **guarantee. Even though you might have a 3% cap on the indexing for your cash account, your index account could be significantly higher.

Eric: That’s why that income rider is so popular, because while it’s in deferral, you can get those **guaranteed growth periods.

Dick: Right. If we move into the spread?

Eric: Personally, I’m a big fan of the spread; and that’s not peanut butter and jelly, necessarily. I like spreads because with a standard fee, you have typically a percentage that’s pulled out every quarter, of your account, period after period. Let’s just use a round number.

Dick: You’re referring to the income rider.

Eric: Income rider fees.

Dick: Right. Okay.

Eric: You could have fees for other things, but the income rider fee, which is what makes a hybrid annuity really a hybrid, is having that income rider. There’s typically a fee associated. If that fee is ½%, that ½% is going to be pulled out on a regular interval, ir-regardless of whether or not you’re getting a gain.

Dick: Whether you had any interest earnings or not.

Eric: That’s correct. Spreads on the other hand, are typically higher than fees. A fee may be 50 basis points, ½%. You may see a spread of 1½% to 2%. The deal with the spread is the company only takes their portion if you have a gain. You’re giving up the first portion of any kind of gain that you could receive.

Dick: Right. Your account value cannot go backwards if you’re not earning with a spread.

Eric: That’s right. If you had 12 consecutive, or 10 consecutive, years of getting 0 return, whatever you put in principle-wise, would be **guaranteed to be that same level.

Dick: Right. I think that the spread has a definite place, and it should be considered in the overall picture. As we’ve experienced with certain annuities that don’t have a spread, their contractual **guarantees are so much higher for the income. Since that’s the client’s primary objective, then it makes sense to go with the fee over the spread, using that particular annuity. You have to weigh it against all those factors.

Eric: Exactly. Typically, you’ll see the spread number being higher. It’s just attractive when you’re looking at predictability, that you know that you’re not going to have any kind of negative impact just because you don’t have a return.

Dick: Another idea of using the spread is when the market has . . . when you’re using it in indexing, and maybe you’re doing an average of a year’s worth of indexing, and they will say, “If your average growth of the index for the year was 10%, you’re going to have a 3% spread.” That means that first 3% of that 10%, you don’t get.  On the other hand, if that year there was a 5% negative growth, or 10% negative growth, then your 3% spread would not be applicable, because there’s no earnings, no growth there.

Eric: Right. Where we typically see the spreads are on something that have more upside potential a lot of the time.

Dick: Right. Did I actually do the math where I said, “If you’re up 10% and you have a 3% spread, you would have 7% gain”? Let’s move on and talk about participation.

Eric: That’s the easiest thing, in the sense of it’s taking a percentage of the growth and you get a participation percentage, typically. Back in the good old days, it might have been 50%. If the gain was 10% of the market, you would get ½.

Dick: I was always a fan of participation, but because of the financial crisis we’ve been through, the Great Recession, we’ve seen all that pare back to where participation rights are now down around 25%. The market goes up, let’s use that 10%, it’s easy to figure. If the market goes up 10% and I get 25%, what did I earn?

Eric: 2½.

Dick: 2 ½%, okay.

Eric: I got my calculator in my pocket.

Dick: You’re good, Eric. Okay. We already touched on the average a little bit, in using the spread, so maybe we’ll move on to the next one. This one’s very interesting. This one, I see messed with a little bit. When I say messed with, folks, I see you messed with a little bit, unfortunately, from advisors that overstate this particular strategy.

Eric: Are we talking about the monthly sum?

Dick: Monthly sum. The monthly average.

Eric: Look at the potential.

Dick: It does have good potential. It just doesn’t usually work out, Eric.

Eric: 2% a month. There’s 12 months in a year.

Dick: If I get 2% each month, and I add those together, that means I’ve got 24% potential. If the market goes up 24%, and it does at 2% a year, I get all 24%. Is that correct?

Eric: 2% a month.

Dick: A month, yeah, keep me straight.

Eric: For the whole year, I’ll get 24%. That’s my potential in a given year.

Dick: What’s the worst thing that can happen in that year? If you’re going up 2% every month, what’s the worst thing that could happen maybe in that 10th or 11th month?

Eric: That’s where the market loses 20% in one month.

Dick: That couldn’t wipe it all out, could it?

Eric: Yes, it can.

Dick: It can?

Eric: There’s no downside protection.

Dick: Folks, that’s the problem. The monthly sum and the monthly average has a cap on the upside, but it has no cap on the downside. The companies have figured out that, yes, there are some years where you really do capture and you get those big, big returns, and it feels good and it looks good. There are times to actually use this strategy.

Eric: Now is probably one of them, actually.

Dick: It very well could be.

Eric: I always call it the homerun versus the single. We talk about annual point being the single. You get lots of singles, but the monthly sum is truly going for the homerun. We have seen returns out there in the 14%, 15%, 18% range.

Dick: Right. More often than not, what do we see?  A big 0. We may see a client go for 3, 4, or 6 years before seeing any interest crediting to their account, and that’s pretty tough for people. They’re not going backwards.

Eric: Right, and we should qualify that. While you’ve got not downside protection on the month within the index, that doesn’t apply to the account value. The account value, the worst it’s going to do, again, is 0. Even if your index finishes down on the year, what will be applied to your account is basically 0 gain.

Dick: Okay. Now we come to a very interesting one, Eric, called the blend.

Eric: The blend, the blender.

Dick: We put it in the blender. We’ll do one of these. Here we go. Let’s make this real simple. A blend is like a balanced portfolio: You put 50% in stocks and you put 50% in bonds. However in this case, what we’re doing is we’re putting 50% in some popular index. It’s not really going in the index, as we’ve discussed many times. It’s using it as a measure. We’re putting 50% in towards an index and we’re putting 50% into . . . I’m just using 50%, folks. It could be 30% or 40%, but it all equals 100%. 50% into a fixed rate of interest. We’re just saying ½ the account goes into fixed rate of interest, ½ the account goes into stocks.

Eric: Right. Then you dump them both in the blender.

Dick: Right. Exactly. There’s no cap on the 50% where the stocks are at.

Eric: Which is what makes it attractive to [inaudible: 16:08]. You’ve got unlimited upside potential on the blend side. They all have limiting factors.

Dick: It’s tricky.

Eric: What’s in that fixed rate bucket is typically, right now it’s at 1% or 2%. The best that 50% is going to do is 2%

Dick: Yeah, 2% or 1½%.

Eric: You can get 10% or 20% over here, but it has to be then blended with that fixed rate bucket.

Dick: Typically, you could take, in a year where you had the market up 10% and you had a 2% bucket and you had a 10% bucket, and they were both equal in this case. You put in the blender, you stirred it all up, what are you going to come out with?

Eric: 6%.

Dick: About 6%. Boy, you are good. Folks, we’ve done the math for you on these. When you’re on this website, we’ve got some formulas, and we broke it down in simple terms so that you can read it slowly and get a good understanding of what we’re talking about.

Eric: We try to give you at least a cursory idea of what to expect when you’re seeing some of these terms flown about.

Dick: We’ve probably . . . hopefully, we have not. Hopefully, we haven’t thoroughly confused you. What we really want you to take away from this is that these are the moving parts that give you greater potential. These are not the specific reasons, for most of you, why you would actually buy or choose to allocate to a hybrid annuity.

Eric: If you’re buying for these bells and whistles, the fit’s probably not right.  If you’re buying for the base chassis, and you can live with that **guarantee from the income rider and from the annuity aspect and the income side, or the estate planning side, whatever that need is, if this fits your need and you can just understand that there’s the potential for a little bit more extra.

Dick: This is where a good advisor comes in, because they can look at the potential, they can look at what’s going on in the economy in general. Folks, they can help you make a good decision on which way to go in this indexing. Even if the indexing really produced nothing and you had good contractual **guarantees, which is what you should have your sights set on, you’ll be satisfied.

Eric: Exactly. Buy for the basics, and be happy with the extras.

Dick: Right. Exactly.

Eric: Hope we’ve broken down and explained to you the ‘says who’ portion.

Dick: Yes, ‘says who’. Look behind the veil a little bit and see who’s telling you that they’re too complicated, because maybe from that person it is too complicated. For someone who understands a hybrid annuity and what it does for the client, it can be very effective as a good retirement financial tool.

Eric: Thanks for tuning us in today.

Dick: Thank you.

The post Hybrid Annuities have too many moving parts… Says Who? appeared first on Annuity Guys®.

Dick and Eric reveal the reason why people would choose a hybrid annuity and then provide a list of the “moving parts”.

**Guarantees, including optional benefits, are backed by the claims-paying ability of the issuer, and may contain limitations, including surrender charges, which may affect policy values. During this segment, Dick and Eric are referring to Fixed Annuities unless otherwise specified.

Some of the “Moving Parts” that may be in a Hybrid Annuity

• Contractual Guarantees (absolute, non-moving)
• Income Riders
• Index Strategies
• Annual Point-to-Point with Caps
• Annual Point-to-Point Average Spread
• Annual Point-to-Point Monthly Average or Sum
• Annual Point-to-Point with Participation Rate
• Caps
• Spreads
• Fees
• Uncapped Index
• Blends
• Biannual Point-to-Point
• Quadrennial Point-to-Point

Annuity Guys® Video Transcript:

Dick: Eric, we hear it all the time.

Eric: “They’re too complicated!”

Dick: We see it all the time that hybrid annuities or fixed index annuities are too complicated.

Eric: “There are too many moving parts. How can you explain these things to me? It doesn’t make sense. There’s too much!”

Dick: Well, there has to be something to this because everywhere you look, that is one of the most prominent things that are written about annuities, in general. I don’t care if it’s a variable. Sometimes they say immediate annuities are simple and they are in general, but there are a lot of different parts to an immediate annuity.

Eric: Oh no, they’re simple.

Eric: They’re immediate, immediate gratification. I give you this much. You send me a check for this much.

Dick: Okay, so if these are too complicated, why should somebody even consider getting one?

Eric: Well, there’s the **guarantee aspect.

Dick: Right, that might have something to do with it.

Eric: Well, maybe a contractual **guarantee would be a good thing.

Dick: I think that might be one of the reasons why these have become so popular.

Eric: You think?

Dick: Folks, when you look at an annuity and you look at all the moving parts, there’s no question it can become very complex, very complicated. If you get lost in all of the things about an annuity, you’ll miss some of the main points, which are what you just said Eric, it is the contractual **guarantee.

Eric: That’s right when you go, and you start looking or considering an annuity for retirement, typically. What do you need? What are you solving for? Do you need lifetime income and if you do, how much? Then you look at what you have and if you purchase an annuity, this is what the minimum **guarantee is. That is the key element of a purchase of that level. What’s the minimum **guarantee?

Dick: So if I want to know that I have a certain level of income, at a certain age that is just flat out **guaranteed and I’m satisfied with that and that meets my retirement objective, then why do I have all these other moving parts?

Eric: Well, I think we refer to it maybe as gravy or icing, depending on which type of plate you prefer.

Dick: That’s what we talk to our clients about is if we can first of all, make sure that we’ve met your objectives, and that you’re satisfied, and that is absolutely iron-clad **guaranteed, then anything we can get that comes with the moving parts is extra.

Eric: That’s right. That’s what you have to understand. Working backwards, I think is the best way to look at it. It’s what do you need? Is it income? Is it growth? When we look at growth, what’s the **guaranteed rate? You know what’s the **guaranteed rate of return? If we get more than that, will you be disappointed? No.

Dick: And we might achieve a higher rate, by utilizing a death benefit.

Eric: Exactly. It’s another **guarantee. The **guarantee may come from the base of the contract or it may come from a rider.

Dick: That’s right.

Eric: But those riders are part of those contractual **guarantees, it’s built into the contract.

Dick: Yes, when we talk about moving parts and things being complicated, I know a lot of folks that are watching have had experience with mutual fund^{^}s and different items of this nature. When we think in terms of prospectus, how complicated is that?

Eric: Well, you’re assuming one thing, people have read the prospectus. Most people don’t bother to pick up the prospectus they get from a mutual fund^{^}. They don’t want to read the 40-50-200 pages of information, in print this small. They just don’t want to look at it.

Dick: And if you do read it, I mean obviously there is a certain complicated aspect to it, and yet it’s very similar when you’re looking at an annuity, from the standpoint that there are some parts of it that can seem complex.

Eric: Right and it usually has to do with the growth potential side, in both the mutual fund^{^} and in the annuity world. It’s that aspect that creates the sizzle, I think as you call it.

Dick: Truly, we’re aware of this because we’ve seen it, where an advisor or an agent is overzealous trying to sell an annuity. They paint this picture of all this upside potential. No downside risk, but a lot of upside potential. That is not always going to be the case. In fact, it’s just way overstated.

Eric: People take the marketing components of everything and talk about the potential. When we talk to prospects, clients, whoever here, we’ll have someone come in and say “I just talked to this guy and he talked about this 7.0% or 8.0% **guarantee.”

Dick: Right 7.0% or 8.0% growth and compounding.

Eric: Yeah, and it’s **guaranteed. And then we always have to pull them back a little bit and say that may be on the income rider portion. Now it’s a contractual **guarantee component, but they have to understand that that’s a number they can only use for income. As long as that meets their basic need, it’s part of that contractual **guarantee, but they have to understand how it works.

Dick: Right, exactly. Folks, there are genuinely a lot of different aspects, especially to a hybrid annuity or what we would call a fixed indexed annuity which is the hybrid annuity. Eric, I thought we’d just kind of run down this list and we’ll put this on the blog site.

Eric: List the moving parts here for you.

Dick: Yeah, and maybe we could aim for next week or something, to get a little more into each moving part.

Eric: I think that would benefit most of the people we speak with, because the confusing part, the complication comes from the moving parts.

Dick: And I would say, folks don’t get too hung up on this, because we’re going to make it sound real complicated here. The fact of the matter is that, if you’ll truly focus on the contractual **guarantee aspect, you’ll understand that these are just options that you have, that can be used. And that’s where you do need an advisor, to help you to make those decisions, on what might give you greater potential.

Eric: All right, so what are the moving parts? You made a list, because we didn’t want to forget anything and I’m sure we will forget something.

Dick: Our biggest challenge will be not to actually start describing these, as we go through them. He’s just going to read the list.

Eric: We decided it would take way too long to describe each one individually in this episode.

Dick: Well, I’ll tell you what, you want me to just go ahead and read it?

Eric: Yes, read them.

Dick: Okay, we’ve got first of all the annual point-to-point with a cap. There’s an annual point-to-point with an average, where the index is again, averaged over the course of a year, and typically there will be a spread in there.

Eric: See, he’s explaining them already. He’s trying to explain it. See now your head’s starting to spin isn’t it?

Dick: Okay, I’ll stay on track. Here I go, annual point-to-point with a monthly average, or also called monthly sum. Annual point-to-point, with a participation rate could be 100% could be… There I go; caps, spreads, fees, uncapped indexes, blends, two-year, four-year, three-year, five-year point-to-point.

Eric: Points, yeah. I’m sure we left out something.

Dick: I did pretty good.

Eric: He finally reined it in a little bit. He really wants; we really do want to break it down for you.

Dick: We will. It’s tough not to start explaining, folks.

Eric: We really do want to break it down for you.

Dick: We will. We’ll break it down more.

Eric: Give you a reason to come back and check the email registry.

Eric: We appreciate you tuning in today.

Dick: Thank you very much.

The post Are Hybrid Annuities too Complicated? appeared first on Annuity Guys®.

**Guarantees, including optional benefits, are backed by the claims-paying ability of the issuer, and may contain limitations, including surrender charges, which may affect policy values. During this segment, Dick and Eric are referring to Fixed Annuities unless otherwise specified.

What are Hybrid Annuities?

Hybrid annuities, also referred to as hybrid income annuities, are essentially a type of insurance contract allowing the account owner to allocate his or her assets into a fixed annuity with a market benchmark component, having an income rider or riders that give substantial present or future **guarantees to secure a variety of retirement objectives.

These annuities refer to a combination of several unique aspects of various types of annuities that have been combined. Technically, a hybrid annuity is a fixed index annuity with an innovative new generation income rider attached to it.

Some hybrid annuities can help to resolve the concerns with regard to other needs in addition to asset growth and retirement income––such as long-term care funding or wealth transfer to heirs––while still providing one with a secure income. These annuities are considered by many to be the answer to satisfying a combination of retirement objectives combined into one solution, thus having the potential to solve several issues in retirement.

Obtaining a hybrid annuity essentially works the same way that you choose any annuity, in that making an allocation begins by choosing the hybrid annuity after comparing rates, features and ratings that meet key retirement objectives and then funding the hybrid annuity contract with a licensed agent as the final step.

With some hybrids, if funds are required for needs such as long-term care, with certain hybrid annuities, owners can have access to withdrawals for that purpose by way of an accelerated cash account payout or a **guaranteed increased income payout, in some cases for as long as it is needed. However, if they do not need the funds for that purpose, they will receive their lifetime **guaranteed retirement income just as it was structured or use the annuity for moderate growth as a secure asset foundation to balance their portfolio.

Annuity Guys® Video Transcript:

Dick: We’re going to talk about hybrid annuities today. We’ve have a lot of different subjects, and a lot of times, Eric, we touch on hybrid annuities. But let’s talk about why they’re so popular and maybe, before we actually get into that, let’s talk about what they are.

Eric: Oh sure. I was ready to talk about why they’re so popular. What is a hybrid annuity? People call up and say, “Well, I’ve been talking to this guy about a hybrid annuity.

Eric: Then the first thing I do is I say, “Stop,” because hybrid unfortunately has become a marketing term for a lot of individuals.

Dick: A hybrid annuity, to us, is the fixed index or fixed annuity, usually with an indexing component, and then it has a rider typically that **guarantees income for life. These are like the newer, more innovative income riders. I know you run into this. I run into it. Folks will start describing a variable annuity^# to me, and they’ll start saying it’s a hybrid. They may have just confused it with a hybrid, or they may have been told it’s a hybrid.

Eric: In all fairness to the variable annuity^#, it was really the first one to have those riders that would give income for life.

Dick: That’s true.

Eric: So if you think of just that rider being that contextual piece that makes it more of a hybrid. Well, in my mind those pieces were always part of the variable. They weren’t part of the fixed. So the fixed has kind of morphed its way, to use a different term I guess, into that variable.

Dick: How long has it been that fixed annuities? I’m going back I would say . . .

Eric: I’m much too young to know.

Dick: I would say that it was about somewhere seven years ago that the riders on the fixed annuities really started to pick up steam. And like you say, on the variable annuities^#, they’d already been kind of a mainstay for the variable annuities^#.

Eric: Right. I think what they saw was the variable annuity^# market had a lot of traction. People really appreciated for life without having to give up their assets.

Dick: Without annuitizing

Eric: Right, annuitizing. And that’s where we always talk about the immediate annuities, that’s the component they have. You can get income for life, but you have to give up your assets. So why people are attracted and what makes hybrid annuities so popular is that aspect of, basically, income for life **guarantees without having to give up your assets. You can still pass on money to heirs. You can still change your mind. You have majority access as we like to say.

Dick: Yes, or majority control.

Eric: Majority control. So the aspect of the hybrid annuity is actually very popular for those specific reasons right now. The other thing I see right now, especially in today’s economy, when you look at where rates are, as far as what’s being paid on the growth side, not extremely attractive.

Dick: It’s not very good. It kind of goes back to the bank CD rates, savings rates, and money markets are all effected typically by the ten year Treasury, and we have that same effect on the annuities. If we said they’re paying double what the banks pay, it’s still not very much.

Eric: No. Two times nothing is still nothing.

Dick: Exactly. So you might be looking at a 2% to 3% range maybe on a fixed annuity or even a fixed index annuity. And yet, on a recent report, Eric, that we were just talking about, the LIMRA Report, it showed that people purchasing annuities, those sales are down pretty dramatically, except for the fixed index, which is what we consider the hybrid.

Eric: Which is the base of the hybrid.

Dick: Exactly. And let’s just say that for the sake of conversation, folks, in today’s annuity world, the mainstream hybrid annuity is considered the fixed indexed annuity with one of the newer income riders on it. So just for the sake of clarification, when you’re speaking with people, you really have to clarify terms. Ninety percent of what’s talked about on the Internet and what’s talked about, advisor to client and advisor to advisor, is a hybrid annuity is a fixed annuity with a newer, innovative type income rider on it.

Eric: That’s right. And those are the pieces right now that are for the upcoming retirees, basically or near retirees, as I like to think of them. That’s what makes it really attractive, because those companies are still providing some of those **guarantees in deferral for the growth component on those hybrid annuities.

That’s the other aspect of that income rider usually. It’s I’m going to **guarantee a certain percentage of growth in deferral. Right now, we’ve got in the range of 4%, 5%, 6%, 7% still available in that deferred growth. So for somebody who’s thinking about retiring in the next five to seven years, if you’re uncomfortable with what you think is going to happen in the market necessarily and you want that **guarantee, it’s **guaranteed and predictable. Those are two aspects that give near retirees comfort.

Dick: Well, and this is where, when we go back and we compare it to the variable annuity^# and we say sales are down in variable annuities^#, and yet they’re up in indexed annuities, there’s not as much potential on an indexed annuity for growth. People aren’t interested today so much in potential and growth as they are in **guarantees.

Eric: Safety and **guarantees.

Dick: Safety and **guarantee of principal, and I also say there’s one more factor that makes these so popular and that is cash flow, because we spend our life, our careers building our money up and saving, and we look at growth. So we’re accumulating net money. But what are we accumulating it for?

Eric: To spend it.

Dick: We need to spend it, effectively and efficiently, and that’s what the hybrid annuity does, is it allows you to know what type of cash flow you’re going to have throughout your retirement, to ladder it, stage it, cover some inflation hedge aspects. I believe that’s what’s driving the popularity of this hybrid annuity.

Eric: Yes, I would agree. I would say 90% of the questions I get about annuities are about hybrid annuities. When I talk to people, I say the best thing about a hybrid you work backwards. Tell me what income you want and when you want it, and I can use a hybrid annuity . . .

Dick: And we’ll tell you the least amount of money to put in to get there.

Eric: To get there. People are like, “Yes, that’s what I want. I want that predictability, reliability, and **guarantees, those contractual **guarantees.”

Dick: So, folks, we hope that this has cleared up some of your concerns and potential misconceptions, or confirmed the things that you already know about a hybrid annuity. It’s very much a part of the financial planning community today and what’s being used and what’s effective. Anything that we can do to give you more clarity and maybe some direction on these hybrid annuities, we’ll be glad to do it.

Eric: And hopefully we explained why they’re so popular right now.

Dick: Yes.

Eric: Thanks for tuning us in.

Dick: Thank you.

The post Why are Hybrid Annuities so Popular? appeared first on Annuity Guys®.

In today’s low interest rate environment laddering annuities allows clients to potentially capitalize on increasing rates without forgoing returns that can only be obtained by committing to a longer maturity period. Laddering provides an opportunity for conversion of shorter maturity annuities to better options if they are available earlier – then the maturities continue to provide that option on a regular ongoing basis.

Perhaps the best option to ladder annuities is by staggering deferred hybrid annuities for future income. By laddering hybrid annuities you can create a income stream that will combat inflation and provide for added flexibility with future income.  It can also be an excellent strategy for financial security should you live a longer then expected life.

Eric and Dick break down some of the pros and cons for laddering annuities.

Guarantees, including optional benefits, are backed by the claims-paying ability of the issuer, and may contain limitations, including surrender charges, which may affect policy values. During this segment, Dick and Eric are referring to Fixed Annuities unless otherwise specified.

See how Scott Bulmer and  Kevin Hedstrom address this same topic in a recent issue of Life Health Pro.

Customize Annuity Options With Laddering

As an agent who has worked with hundreds of clients to help them build and protect their retirement nest eggs, I am now faced with helping my clients make the dramatic shift from the wealth management phase (gathering and growing assets) to the income management phase (preserving and distributing assets). With 78 million baby boomers racing toward—or already in—retirement, the need for retirement income protection has never been greater.

It’s been well documented that since Jan 1, 2011, about 10,000 baby boomers have and will continue to turn 65 each day. This demographic phenomenon forces our industry to be the catalyst in moving clients’ mindset from accumulation to income distribution strategies. Our retiree clients now need to draw down their assets to generate a reliable, secure income stream that will allow them to maintain the lifestyle they so desire during their retirement years.

With the latest gyrations in the stock market, historically low interest rates and the economic turmoil here and abroad still fresh in their minds; clients are looking for less risky solutions to creating a secure retirement income combined with growth potential. Those clients nearing or in retirement can’t afford to weather another pullback in the market as was experienced several years ago. They just don’t have the time horizon or risk tolerance to recover unless they want to continue working throughout their retirement. In addition to market shifts, we are dealing with traditional safe money alternatives, such as CDs, money market funds and saving accounts, that may be out of favor due to these low rates.

Fixed indexed annuities as a solution

All of these forces—demographic and economic—pose an interesting challenge to agents. The major risks facing senior clients today are:

• Market risk—The ongoing volatility in the stock market
• Inflation risk—The erosion of one’s purchasing power
• Longevity risk—The increase in life expectancy

The average individual’s lifespan has increased markedly over the last 50 years, and people now have to worry about running out of money before they run out of time.

A product solution to mitigate these risks that I’ve incorporated in my practice is the fixed indexed annuity. Since their introduction in 1995, indexed annuities have given people the opportunity to participate in the upside of being linked to an index, such as the S&P 500, without having to worry about losing money. Clients are very receptive to the dual nature of this product, which, at its core, is an insurance contract. They get the opportunity to partake in the upside potential of the stock market, with the **guarantee they won’t lose money. In addition, over the years, these products have performed as they were designed to. [Read More…]

Annuity Guys® Video Transcript:

Dick: One of the things that Eric and I find ourselves involved in a lot of times with annuities is laddering those annuities.

Eric: Right. It’s a technique or a strategy that we employ that uses multiple annuities with basically different maturity dates. So you would start with perhaps a three-year or a five-year or a ten-year, different layers.

Dick: I think a lot of folks, Eric, are familiar with CDs. You’re familiar with CD laddering. You may not have called it laddering, but staging your CDs over a period of time.

Eric: Staging or staggering.

Dick: It works very well for annuities for different reasons.

Eric: Right. Well, what are some of those reasons? Safety because you could use three different companies.

Dick: Diversification helps with that safety.

Eric: Right. Then you’ve also got return.

Dick: If you’re wanting to grow your money. We’re in a very low interest rate environment. So what do we think is going to happen maybe over the next three to six to eight years?

Eric: We expect interest rates to rise because they’re at all-time lows. They’re almost at zero in the case of the Fed rate.

Dick: Sure.

Eric: So we expect to see growth. But what do you do now? In order to get the biggest return right now, you have to commit to seven, eight, nine, or ten years.

Dick: It’s a pretty long period of time. Right.

Eric: Is it a smart decision to say, “I want to put all my money in a ten year product right now,” knowing that rates are likely to go up in say three or four years?

Dick: It probably isn’t if you’re looking for growth.

Eric: Right. But are you willing to sacrifice three years of growth just waiting?

Dick: Well, the alternative to that though, Eric, is if we don’t do anything, we get no return at all.

Eric: Well, actually we lose money.

Dick: We lose money because of inflation.

Eric: Inflation.

Dick: Exactly.

Eric: Yeah, exactly. By looking at, in the case of return, staggering those things. Monies are coming due at various intervals. It gives you that.  The one thing I like to use annuities for in laddering is the income riders and the income **guarantees.

Dick: Right, which is a completely different way of looking at annuities and using them, but it’s been very effective for our clients.

Eric: The strength of an annuity right now, especially the hybrid annuities, is the **guarantees for income and deferral. You still have the five, six, or seven percent out there that you can get in a deferred for income. If you use a stage one annuity, perhaps turn income on right away knowing that you’ve got this **guarantee in deferral, your stage two or the second rung of the ladder you can turn on.

Dick: This helps us to offset inflation, because we know that, initially, we can start off with an income that would be adequate for that time period, but that we’re going to need to supplement that income five years, eight years, or ten years down the line. The next annuity kicks in at that stage, which is laddered.

Eric: Exactly. The it’s even nice to have an optional rung that may sit out there that you may never even anticipate turning it on. But if you have longevity that you don’t either anticipate or something happens, you’ve got that third one out there that’s in deferral getting those **guarantees. So it becomes that additional rung.

Dick: Right. It can pass on to the heirs, or you can turn it on if you need it. One of the things that we really don’t know right now is what is going to happen to certain pensions, what cutbacks or things might happen with Social Security. So it’s nice to have that contingency, that annuity out there that’s going long term.

Eric: Right, and it’s nice to have one that’s especially geared for growth. You know that it’s going to be at this level here, this level here, and this level here. The **guarantees, having those **guarantees out there.

Dick: When would it maybe not make sense to ladder?

Eric: Not use a ladder? Well, obviously if you have limited assets. There are just times when there are minimum deposit requirements, and if you have limited assets, you may only have an option of one annuity. That’s one.

Dick: Sure. When we say “limited assets,” maybe $100,000 or $200,000, somewhere in that neighborhood? I guess it depends on the income that you need. It depends on the growth that you need.

Eric: Right, it depends on all that.

Dick: I do know that the more money that you have, folks, especially when you start getting up there in the $400,000 to a million or a million plus, it makes a lot of sense to ladder and diversify as compared to maybe below $400,000. There can be some good reasons to still ladder and still diversify, but you have to look at it a little closer.

Eric: Right. One of the things we run into a lot is much of the time you’ll see one specific annuity that performs best for somebody’s situation, and there’s just not another comparable piece that does the same thing.

Dick: So the tradeoff is to get the diversification, the safety, and the laddering that maybe you’re looking for, you have to take considerably less in benefits.

Eric: It’s simply deciding to take a pay cut. If you value the other things you get in the willingness to take a pay cut, that’s what that balance is.

Dick: Then there are, again, some annuities out there, on the growth stage where it’s not just income or the pay cut, where they give a really nice death benefit. On top of that death benefit, they will give a nice return, so that you would maybe have the potential to see somewhere between a 6% to a 10% return from a very safe position with your assets. It may be a situation where a person would say, “Hey, because I want this to go onto my heirs, I don’t really need to ladder it,” depending on the amount of money.

Eric: It’s the **guarantees. You are getting a contractual **guarantee in this case from an annuity that is superior to something else that’s offered by anybody.  It’s if you’re willing to take less and go here and split them, that’s an option. If you know your best circumstances lays right here, sometimes you’ll decide not to ladder.

Dick: I would say, just for folks as we kind of wind things up here, that in most cases the laddering is a good thing, works, and should be looked at. Occasionally, though, it’s not. I mean occasionally you’re going to want to go with one company that gives you the greatest benefit, and it isn’t going to make as much sense to ladder.

Eric: The best way to say this is, “You know what? Sit down with someone who can run the numbers for you, talk to them about what the pros and the cons are, and then ultimately you get to make the decision.” Now, I think it should always be one of the things that’s part of the consideration and part of the discussion. For most advisors, that’s exactly how they’ll present it: Here’s option one, here’s option one and two, and here’s how that works out.

Dick: Right. What are you comfortable with?

Eric: Exactly. Where is your comfort level? You’re in control.

Dick: Right. Pick what’s best for you.

Eric: Exactly. Thanks for checking us out.

Dick: Thank you.

The post Why You Should Ladder Annuities… appeared first on Annuity Guys®.

**Guarantees, including optional benefits, are backed by the claims-paying ability of the issuer, and may contain limitations, including surrender charges, which may affect policy values. During this segment, Dick and Eric are referring to Fixed Annuities unless otherwise specified.

In 2010 the Wharton Financial Institutions Center updated their published study on the empirical performance of fixed index annuities based upon the products offered and the actual interest credited. What Jack Marrion, Geoffrey VanderPal and David Babbel found was ground breaking and eye opening for many in the financial world.

Their findings dismissed most of the previous studies concerning fixed index annuities due to erroneous findings based upon hypothetical data and non-valid assumptions. What the Wharton Study found was that during specific time periods fixed index annuities actually performed competitively with alternative portfolios of stocks and bonds.

Index annuities were originally introduced in the United States approximately twenty years ago as an alternative to mutual fund^{^}s. These annuities allow their holders to participate in growth from stock market indexes, yet prevent the risk of loss to the annuity owner’s principal in years when these popular indices produce a loss. This type of annuity has produced much higher annuity rates or interest crediting than traditional fixed annuities.

Due to this feature, money flowed very quickly into these types of annuities during the Great Recession of 2008-2009. In fact, according to LIMRA over 30 billion dollars flowed into fixed index annuities during both 2010 & 2011 and now represent 41 percent of fixed annuities sold annually (LIMRA, 2-16-12).

Why would money flow into financial instruments in such a volatile environment? Fixed index annuities during their history have actually performed competitively and even outperformed popular market indexes during period of high volatility.

To quote the Wharton study, “How will index annuities perform in the future? We do not know but the concept has proven to work in the past and any articles should reflect this. FIAs were not designed to be direct competitors of index investing nor have FIAs been promoted to provide returns to compete with equity mutual fund^{^}s or ETFs. The FIA is designed for safety of principal with returns linked to upside market performance.”

Annuity Guys® Video Transcript:

DICK: You know we’re here today to talk about the Wharton Study and Eric, before we get into the Wharton Study here and I know this kind of ties into it, but let’s just talk about fixed index annuities, which is what the Wharton Study is about. Let’s talk about the popularity of fixed index annuities in recent years.

ERIC: Well, it comes into why did we decide on this topic today? Just recently LIMRA came out and gave us some of the tallies from 2011 about what the most popular annuities and the flavors of annuities that were out there, were and of the fixed annuity chassis, so to speak, of that flavor indexed annuities amounted for 44% of the sales in the fixed annuity chassis world, which was over $30 billion, about $32 billion in sales of fixed index annuities.

DICK: And that’s been going on for the last couple of years.

ERIC: Yes, they’ve been increasing popular ever since they kind of came into existence in 1995. They’ve kind of gradually built, built, built and now they’re pretty consistent at being over $30 million in sales.

DICK: Yep, which is very good, and one thing I’d like to do is maybe tie that back into the Wharton Study, which we were talking about. We’ve got up on the board and he’s sitting in front of us. The Wharton Study folks, if you haven’t read it yet, it’s available in our annuity reviews blog, so you can get the link there.

But you might find it to be good reading, because it actually takes what was just assumptions that were maybe based on erroneous types of assumptions and actually brings it down to real data, so that we can actually look at fixed annuities and compare it even to the popular indexes like the S&P 500, and just see how it really performed.

ERIC: Well, and I like some of the fascinating statistics they toss in there. They look at indexed annuities being part of an index and one of the things they analyze and they break down is the Russell 3000, and I just find that index comparison fascinating, because they say the Russell 3000 takes into account 98% of the stocks that are out there. They said that when they looked at their analysis between 1983 and 2006, that has 98%t of the stocks, publicly held in that index.

DICK: Yes.

ERIC: Of that and this is the fascinating statistics for me, 40% of those stocks had a negative return during that time period, 20% lost all their value, while about 10% gained over about 500%. So and what their determination was, when they said you’re better off picking the index because you’re going to cover all those bases. You’re either going to get those big returns, and if you’re picking individual stocks…

DICK: Well, you could be on either side. And the chances are much more likely to be on the downside.

ERIC: You can hit the home run or you can hit the strikeout, and you’re back on the bench.

DICK: Right, let’s talk about the last decade or so, 10-12 years. What we call the lost decade, and how did fixed indexed annuities; I’m asking a rhetorical question here; but how did fixed indexed annuities compare to let’s say, the S&P 500 during that let’s say the first decade of the 21st century?

ERIC: If you take the decade as a whole, you know, everyone kind of looks at the 2000 to 2010, you know the S&P was basically flat.

DICK: Right, we call it the lost decade.

ERIC: There was nothing there, but if you were in the indexed world you got good returns.

DICK: And when we’re saying the indexed world, we’re talking about fixed indexed annuity world.

ERIC: Right, in this case we’re talking about it from an indexing standpoint, because of how indexing works, you get the gains and then you lock them in. Get the gains. Lock them in. Now when the losses come, you’re locked in so you don’t take that that bad.

That’s what we call zero is your hero. We’ve kind of talked about that a couple times and that’s where this comes in and it points out, the Wharton Study points out that, because you’re not having those big drops, you’re returns over a period of time, were actually pretty good. Are we predicting future performance with this kind of study?

DICK: It’s going to outperform the market in a good market? I would say no. But on the other hand, I’ve had a lot of folks that have actually sat down and we’ve talked about that difficult time like with the S&P and the major indexes. When we look at the fixed indexed annuity and we look at several of the different annuities that have performed during that time and it’s more now in the Wharton Study, is that they also outperformed those indexes.

The reason they could do it is, just what you were explaining and that is because when the index drops dramatically with a fixed indexed annuity that actually locks in all the gains that it’s had. It might just have a zero; no increase in that particular year, but now it’s locked in at a new low. So what happens the next year? The market goes up. Maybe the market doesn’t go up enough to make up all that it lost, but any gain that it has a portion of that goes to the fixed indexed annuity.

ERIC: Right, so you’re interest in crediting, coming off of a bad year is a good thing.

DICK: Is a good thing, right. So that in essence that allows it in extreme volatility or flat or down to actually produce a real return, where the market can’t produce a return, but the fixed indexed annuity can. Let’s talk a little bit about the way that a fixed indexed annuity actually is able to accomplish this. I mean a little bit of the inner workings, the mechanics of it.

ERIC: I’m not a brain surgeon, but I can tell you that they utilize options, put options, and call options.

DICK: Well, call options is what they’re using.

ERIC: Primarily, to basically buy pennies on the dollar. You’re buying the indexed, the strategies of the indexing, so you’re buying pennies on the dollar and if you get the gains, you get big returns and if you get losses, they expire or basically become worthless.

DICK: Right, exactly. They allow the options to expire for pennies on the dollar and these large companies are in a position to have the type of financial management, to continue to manage money in this way. And let me also take this in the other sense of the safety of the annuity.

The actual premium that’s put into the annuity is fully **guaranteed, in the sense that it’s invested in treasuries, investment grade bonds, very high-quality investment instruments, so that it can **guarantee that the principal will be safe, and that there’ll be a minimum return. It’s **guaranteed by fixed indexed annuity company, even if the market doesn’t perform or the call options don’t perform.

ERIC: They’re using the power of leverage. I mean it really is that way, that’s how they’re making those dollars and bringing those returns, those interest crediting back to you.

DICK: And now we do know that the fixed indexed annuity performed very well during what we call the lost decade, and actually outperformed many of the indexes that it was being used to measure against. I can see why that drove a lot of business into the fixed indexed annuity market. Now as of late, of the last couple of years what we’ve experienced has been lower caps, and yet fixed indexed annuities have continued to sell like crazy. People have continued to pour money into these, to the tune of $30 billion, last year $32 billion.

ERIC: And I will tell you it’s just another safe money alternative, when you compare it to money market accounts, CD account, but your opportunity for growth, we never thought 3.0% sounded like a slam dunk, but 3.0% is a great return, when your CDs are paying a .50%, your money markets are paying a .75%. Three percent, all you need is one good year to get you a 3.0% return, and it kicks the butt of anything that you had from the bank.

DICK: Well, and then we come into this whole hybrid annuity concept, where it uses the fixed indexed annuity chassis and then it has this innovative income rider on it that **guarantees 8.0% compounding. Because what we find, Eric in our practice, is that many of our clients actually need income.

ERIC: Right. We should say that the 8.0% is not on every annuity rider.

DICK: Yeah, well, 7.0-8.0%, some of them the lowest are 6.0% on some of them.

ERIC: The riders out there in deferral are what you can use to **guarantee income and that is a huge predictability for retirement income, and so when people are looking at a fixed indexed annuity and then taking in that additional rider option, it becomes a very powerful thing and even compounds what they found in the Wharton Study.

DICK: Right, right and I do believe from everything that I read and see and hear that, as we have more and more baby boomers they’re coming into retirement and they have to have answers for secure income. What we would call a pension style foundation to the portfolio that annuities are going to continue to be a viable answer in that area.

ERIC: We’re seeing more and more endorsements. We’re seeing them endorsed by the government, endorsed by people like ourselves, who are retirement planners, and basically becoming a large portion of what you should utilize, perhaps as part of your retirement.

DICK: As a portion of your portfolio. Well, I think that we’ve covered the Wharton Study in the sense of the general idea of what it’s about and really want to encourage you to check it out.

ERIC: Check it out. Yeah, check it out online. We’re more than happy to put a link out there on our site, so take a look.

DICK: Thank you.

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