Sales of indexed annuities to seniors is a form of senior financial abuse. That is what experts are saying about the product that is being aggressively and successfully marketed to seniors. See “Indexed annuities ‘terrible idea’ for seniors, says Wharton prof,” InvestmentNews, Jan. 24, 2011.
The Securities and Exchange Commission recently recommended that stockbrokers be required to put the interest of their clients in front of the stockbroker’s bottom line. However, stockbrokers are not the only advisors who put themselves first, according to an article by Anna Maria Andriotis of SmartMoney.com. Advisors from all different spectrums have incentives in selling […]
Zeke Faux’s Bloomberg article, “Indexed Annuities Obscure Fees as Sellers Earn Trip to Disney,” focuses on the undisclosed fees and perks that incentivize agents to gloss over negatives like substantial surrender charges that penalize purchasers who might need to sell the product to meet an unexpected expense.
Beware of index deferred annuities, says Lisa Gibbs in her CNNMoney article, “Index annuities are a safety trap.” If your goal is to protect principal, you give up too much for that protection in an index annuity; there are better ways to do it, according to the article. Index annuities account for a disproportionately large […]
Leslie Scism’s Wall Street Journal article, “Insurers Sued Over Death Bets,” describes how life insurance policies sold to investors, who expect to receive a big payment when the insured dies, have led to lawsuits by insurance companies and investors against each other, as well as by relatives of some of the deceased elderly, alleging that […]
As money remains tight, the jobless rate high, and foreclosures on the rise, the schemers and con artists come out of the woodwork to take advantage of desperate people. Some of the worst scams are those that offer big returns for investments of thousands of dollars. Even savvy business people fall prey to these “advance […]
A federal grand jury in Texas indicted Adley Husni Abdulwahab of Houston on securities fraud charges in connection with an alleged $17 million investment scam, according to an InvestmentNews article titled “Texan indicted in alleged $17M investment scam.” He was already in custody on federal charges in Virginia for his involvement in an alleged $100 […]
Beware of equity indexed annuities, says Forbes Investment Guide. If your goal is to protect principal, you give up too much for that protection in an equity indexed annuity; there are better ways to do it, according to a Forbes article by William P. Barrett entitled “Protection Racket.”
Brokerages are marketing structured products that use complex derivatives and promising equity-like returns with less risk. But they are not as safe as they may appear to be, and experts say that most of them are actually worth less than what you pay for them, according to Jane J. Kim and Ben Levinsohn in their […]
Should sales of life settlements be regulated as sales of securities? After eighteen months of a comprehensive review, the SEC’s Life Settlements Task Force thinks so, and has asked the SEC to urge Congress amend the federal securities laws to bring this about, according to a September 12 InvestmentNews article called “Point/Counterpoint: Are life settlements […]
