CHAPTER 10
The Gift of Transparency
ANNUITIES
In the realm of personal finance, no word has been dragged through the mud more times than the A-word—Annuities. Yet annuities survive and even thrive. How they do is not a mystery.
There is not an outcry on the part of consumers demanding annuity products. The reason for the continued vibrancy of annuity sales is that they pay a big honkin’ commission to the selling broker or agent. And, as most of the financial sales tactics exposed in this book, I’m especially qualified to make such a statement, because I have sold them myself. I wasn’t a bad person in those days, conniving to separate people from their hard-earned money for my own selfish benefit. Conversely, every time in years past when I sold an investment product to a client for a commission, I did so thinking it was in their best interest. My recommendations met all the legal requirements of suitability required of a broker, but I acknowledge to you now that in hindsight there is no question my judgment was partly influenced by the amount of money I could make (or not make) on the sale.
And how could it not be? Let’s say you, as a salesperson, had three different products to sell with the following characteristics: one would pay you one percent for every year that the investment continued to be held by the client, one would pay you 5.75 percent up front followed by .25 percent each additional year, and another would pay you 12 percent—all up front. Which one would you be likely ...
