ATTORNEY NEWSLETTER
Lowering Expectations for Variable Annuities
Our Santa Clara annuity fraud attorneys have long considered annuities to be over-hyped products. Brokers earn large commissions for selling them, and are too often willing to massage or obscure the truth in order to make a sale. Among annuities, the variable and indexed varieties are two of the most over-sold examples of their breed. Because they earn a larger-than-average return for the insurance company, brokers are given cash incentives and even awards for selling these products, leading large amount of seniors to spend large sums of money on a product that may serve their financial needs poorly, if at all. Too often, seniors are left holding the bag for policies that are expensive to maintain, lock their money into accounts, and may not mature until they are long-since centenarians.
In addition, indexed annuities are classified as life insurance, rather than securities, and the course brokers have to take to sell them can take as little as a week. This goes for many of the title you’ll often see decorating the walls of insurance brokers: ‘senior financial expert,’ ‘elder financial advisor,’ and numerous other terms have little or no oversight, and may indicate nothing more than that the broker paid a few dollars or took a 1 hour class.
In order to sell high-value variable annuity products, brokers resort to tactics like mailer campaigns, TV and Radio ads, and notorious “free-lunch seminars,” essentially sales pitches, often held at senior centers, that are designed to scare elderly consumers into buying annuities that will purportedly protect their life savings. Instead, many of these annuities are little more than a weight around their necks, and even getting rid of them can be an expensive and time-intensive process.
Some of the major annuity and life insurance providers are:
- Aviva/Athene/Accordia Life Insurance Company
- Transamerica Life Insurance Company
- John Hancock Life Insurance Company
- Bankers Life Insurance and Casualty company
- Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company
- Midland Life Insurance Company
- North American Company for Life and Health Insurance
- Pacific Life Insurance Company
- Prudential Life Insurance Company
- Genworth Life Insurance Company
- ING USA Annuity and Life Insurance Company
- Lincoln Benefit Life Company
- Metlife/Metropolitan Life Insurance Company
- Unum Life Insurance Company of America
- Voya/Reliastar Life Insurance Company
Contact Us
If you or a loved one has been the victim of an improperly sold or administered variable annuity policy, contact the Santa Clara Annuity Fraud Attorneys at Evans Law Firm. We have experience handling cases involving complex financial contracts and large insurance companies, and can help guide your case through a civil trial or toward an equitable settlement. We can be reached at (415) 441-8669, or by email at info@evanslaw.com
