Insurance Products

In an effort to compete with brokerage firms for the “baby boomer” market, insurance companies in recent years have focused on selling insurance products to consumers that resemble traditional investments. These products include variable annuities, variable life insurance, equity-index annuities, etc. Although the underlying investments in these insurance products resemble traditional mutual funds or index funds, they also have an additional insurance component making them more expensive than most traditional investments. Insurance companies pay their agents higher commissions to encourage sales. As a result, investment abuses in the sale of insurance products have skyrocketed over the last few years.

Page Perry is at the forefront in representing investors who have been victimized by trusted financial professionals who have sold them inappropriate insurance products. The firm has successfully represented aggrieved investors in insurance matters and through this experience has identified common areas of abuse which include:

Early Retirement Scams– Agents encourage workers to retire early and cash in their pensions based on the promise that the lump sum rollover would provide the retiree with higher monthly retirement income and the opportunity to grow the investment with little or no risk. In truth, in many cases, the financial professional improperly recommended the lump sum option solely because it was the only way that his or her firm could gain control of the retirement assets and generate high commissions.

Variable Annuities Sold With IRA’s – Most experts agree that variable annuities should not be sold with qualified accounts such as 401(k)’s because the qualified accounts already provide tax deferred growth- a main selling point of variable annuities. Despite this fact, at least half of all variable annuities are sold within qualified accounts solely because the financial advisor gets a higher commission for selling variable annuities.

If you have investment losses or problems involving insurance products, call the lawyers at Page Perry for experienced representation at (404) 567-4400 or (877) 673-0047 (toll free).