Ron, you\’re right in many ways. Your point is that the annuity owner has several penalty free options for removing the funds. I just think this is more of a questionable attorney seeing an opportunity than a little old lady getting took by an agent. I smell a set-up.
Here we go again with the same old story, people not accepting any personal accountibility or responsibility for their own actions so they find so greedy two bit lawyer to sue for \”their rights\”. Pure B.S. and it\’s so sickening. I somewhat feel bad for the old people but if you don\’t understand what you are buying then why are you buying it? Use some common sense people.
Sure, there are either ignorant or unscruplous agents marketing annuities, just like there are bad doctors and lawyers that are still in business… we need to deal with the individual in these circumstances. The State already approved the product for sale, deemed the deferred surrender charges appropriate. If Klofanda would have been properly schooled by the agent she may have decided on a different product for her savings. On the other hand, she may have been greedy, and didn\’t \”hear\” what the agent said, only the higher rate of return. Annuities work well for seniors, too… as long as they do their homework and understand the product. There are lots of products offered that have reduced charges, but with lower returns. Personally, I think greed (higher return) bit her in the butt.
Before jumping on the bandwagon to call the seniors purchasing annuities for a better return on their investment, how about a full disclosure on how much compensation Allianz paid their agent(s) to sell this product and how much money has Allianz charged to their policyholders to terminate the annuity early. I have a feeling that such revelations would show who the greedy are in these transactions.
I agree that there may be agents that look at their commission first… this gives credence to the idea of total compensation disclosure as in Great Britain. I don\’t sell Allianz annuities, so I don\’t know the level of comp. Obviously, many agents do, and all-in-all I think it\’s a fine company. That said, the \”bad apple\” agents need to be dealt with, and the consumers that only look for the highest returns need to understand the caveats. My point was that the state authorities had the option of denying the product to the consumer… and deemed it acceptable. Allianz, nor any other approved product or carrier should be on the chopping block here… it is an agent and client relationship issue.
I do sell annuities with allianz and in fact own one myself. They offer a good product portfolio. They sent out a note to producers yesterday about this situation. This smells of another atty general showboating for political gain. Allianz mandates the use of suitability forms for all annuity sales. I would think the only way a longer term product would be suitable is if the senior intended to pass assests to her children?
If the mother goes into a nursing home, they can annuitize the annuity, and then only the payment will go to the nursing home, and after she dies, the remaining payments will go to the daughter. If it is annuitized for a 15yr certain, chances are the daughter will get most of it.
Sold a $150,000 Var Ann to a 71yr old, value went to $410,000, had increasing death benefit which racheted up to that value. The annuity value later dropped to about $210,000 before he died, but the two sons, who now think the world of me, collected the $410,000.
The AG of NY is now Governor so his action served him well. It also exposed the fact that the major brokerage firms were steering business to where they would receive a large undisclosed sontingent commission. It was the practice of at least one of telling the client that they received no commission and so they were charging a fee for services and not disclosing the contingent commission. There was at least one case where bids were rigged to make it appear that one of the companies receiving the steered business was the one with the lowest quote when in fact they had an ordinary quote and a bid was solicited from a cooperating company to bid ten percent higher than the ordinary quote just to make it look good.
Some of the biggest and most respected property/casualty insurance companies in the industry were involved in this tawdry revelation. The proposed solution has been to do away with the contingent commission. The 99%+ of the agents who have sold insurance in an honorable manner will be penalized by the less than 1% who abused the system set up to reward performance. I am under 65 years old and have had an annuity set up for about ten years. Currently the death benefit and cash value are well above the amount of money paid into it. While the cash value may fluctuate, the death benefit is fixed and is subject only to increasing to a higher level should the investment portion do well. When I retire, I have all kinds of options with this investment. The same could not be said if my age were 85 and I was converting my life savings to this form of investment. When there is an appearance of an insurance agent/company taking advantage of a feeble minded senior, it should be fully investigated with the guilty punished if they have acted unscrupulously and the innocent cleared. All agents selling annuities and companies offering annuities shouldn\’t be smeared by the action of a single agent or a few greedy agents.
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Ron, you\’re right in many ways. Your point is that the annuity owner has several penalty free options for removing the funds. I just think this is more of a questionable attorney seeing an opportunity than a little old lady getting took by an agent. I smell a set-up.
Here we go again with the same old story, people not accepting any personal accountibility or responsibility for their own actions so they find so greedy two bit lawyer to sue for \”their rights\”. Pure B.S. and it\’s so sickening. I somewhat feel bad for the old people but if you don\’t understand what you are buying then why are you buying it? Use some common sense people.
Sure, there are either ignorant or unscruplous agents marketing annuities, just like there are bad doctors and lawyers that are still in business… we need to deal with the individual in these circumstances. The State already approved the product for sale, deemed the deferred surrender charges appropriate. If Klofanda would have been properly schooled by the agent she may have decided on a different product for her savings. On the other hand, she may have been greedy, and didn\’t \”hear\” what the agent said, only the higher rate of return. Annuities work well for seniors, too… as long as they do their homework and understand the product. There are lots of products offered that have reduced charges, but with lower returns. Personally, I think greed (higher return) bit her in the butt.
Before jumping on the bandwagon to call the seniors purchasing annuities for a better return on their investment, how about a full disclosure on how much compensation Allianz paid their agent(s) to sell this product and how much money has Allianz charged to their policyholders to terminate the annuity early. I have a feeling that such revelations would show who the greedy are in these transactions.
I agree that there may be agents that look at their commission first… this gives credence to the idea of total compensation disclosure as in Great Britain. I don\’t sell Allianz annuities, so I don\’t know the level of comp. Obviously, many agents do, and all-in-all I think it\’s a fine company. That said, the \”bad apple\” agents need to be dealt with, and the consumers that only look for the highest returns need to understand the caveats. My point was that the state authorities had the option of denying the product to the consumer… and deemed it acceptable. Allianz, nor any other approved product or carrier should be on the chopping block here… it is an agent and client relationship issue.
I do sell annuities with allianz and in fact own one myself. They offer a good product portfolio. They sent out a note to producers yesterday about this situation. This smells of another atty general showboating for political gain. Allianz mandates the use of suitability forms for all annuity sales. I would think the only way a longer term product would be suitable is if the senior intended to pass assests to her children?
If the mother goes into a nursing home, they can annuitize the annuity, and then only the payment will go to the nursing home, and after she dies, the remaining payments will go to the daughter. If it is annuitized for a 15yr certain, chances are the daughter will get most of it.
Sold a $150,000 Var Ann to a 71yr old, value went to $410,000, had increasing death benefit which racheted up to that value. The annuity value later dropped to about $210,000 before he died, but the two sons, who now think the world of me, collected the $410,000.
The AG of NY is now Governor so his action served him well. It also exposed the fact that the major brokerage firms were steering business to where they would receive a large undisclosed sontingent commission. It was the practice of at least one of telling the client that they received no commission and so they were charging a fee for services and not disclosing the contingent commission. There was at least one case where bids were rigged to make it appear that one of the companies receiving the steered business was the one with the lowest quote when in fact they had an ordinary quote and a bid was solicited from a cooperating company to bid ten percent higher than the ordinary quote just to make it look good.
Some of the biggest and most respected property/casualty insurance companies in the industry were involved in this tawdry revelation. The proposed solution has been to do away with the contingent commission. The 99%+ of the agents who have sold insurance in an honorable manner will be penalized by the less than 1% who abused the system set up to reward performance. I am under 65 years old and have had an annuity set up for about ten years. Currently the death benefit and cash value are well above the amount of money paid into it. While the cash value may fluctuate, the death benefit is fixed and is subject only to increasing to a higher level should the investment portion do well. When I retire, I have all kinds of options with this investment. The same could not be said if my age were 85 and I was converting my life savings to this form of investment. When there is an appearance of an insurance agent/company taking advantage of a feeble minded senior, it should be fully investigated with the guilty punished if they have acted unscrupulously and the innocent cleared. All agents selling annuities and companies offering annuities shouldn\’t be smeared by the action of a single agent or a few greedy agents.