Right off the bat let me clear something up, Annuities themselves aren’t bad. Although, naive and abusive agents have certainly stained the industry’s reputation.
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If you are considering the use of an annuity for retirement, there is nothing to be scared of. Save your anxiety for the real problems retirees face like the longevity of Social Security and Medicare benefits.
Choosing an annuity for your retirement investment is a science in itself. First off, to determine the suitability for whomever is purchasing, you will you will need to consider a wide range of factors that differ which each person. You then have to select one. If you are deemed suitable for an annuity, you’ll move on to product screening. And, it many ways, it really is.
The process of selection is usually the part where the greedy salesperson will make their move. The purchase of any annuity will pay someone a commission, so you need to get over the fact that an agent is looking to make money. It’s a fact of business. Concentrate on your needs and you’ll be fine. The following is a list of some things that you’ll need to look out for so you avoid purchasing an inferior product.
Surrender Charges - The majority of deferred annuities don’t have any upfront fees whatsoever so the way that the insurance companies protect themselves from a loss so what they will do is charge you a fee if you happen to cancel your contract prematurely. It costs more for a company to have a longer surrender schedule. Most of the time this is linked to upfront bonuses and higher than average agent commissions. Your best interests will not be represented. Simply ignore products with surrender schedules that last more than seven years. Some decent products have longer schedules but there needs to be a compelling reason to extend the contract. Do your homework!
On a side note, make sure you clearly understand any additional restrictions placed on the surrender of a contract. Some contracts restrict an early surrender unless you have taken installments over a specific period of time. Also, those same contracts will impose those restrictions on your heirs should you pass away before the schedule expires. Avoid contracts like those at all costs. These kinds of annuities just hurt the people involved in them. You should maintain as much control as you can over your money, after all it is yours.
Interest Rates - Make sure that you know how the interest rates factor into your contract. Some important rates that are good to know about are yield to surrender, guaranteed minimums, and premium bonuses.
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Premium Bonuses- Many companies lure investors with lucrative one-time bonuses. Bonuses like these most times don’t work out to your advantage. This raises the cost of placement for the company and leads usually leads to a longer surrender schedule. Do not let them lure you in. Turn around and walk the other way.
Guaranteed Minimums- This is the rate that tells you the amount of interest you’ll make even in a worst-case scenario. Don’t settle for less than 3%. If a company pays out less than that, this means one of two things. They will either not know where their company is going to be a few years down the road, or want costs to go down. You want to look for a good strong company that survived 2008’s financial meltdown and expect business to run normally in the present and future. Don’t trust your money to anyone else.
Yield to Surrender - When your contract is done, the yield to surrender is the return rate you’ll get. In this, you’ll be able to see the good minimum guarantees and the negligible bonuses. Your bonus rate will likely lose altitude as time goes by, but your good minimum guarantee should provide you with a reasonable expectation.
Credit Ratings- Annuities are supposed to be a safe investment. It should go without saying that you want to place your money with the most stable company you can find. Turmoil will weed out the weak companies apart from the stable ones and it will also further strengthen the already strong companies. Find those companies. You can trust them with your money.
To keep things simple, we can stop right there. Those areas are exactly where you will run into trouble. Captive agents really have no choice but to sell you specific products and commission fueled agents will most times ignore various potential pitfalls. Understand the ground rules and learn the basics and you have nothing to worry about. Don’t be unnecessarily fearful of annuities, as they won’t hurt you.
Make sure you check out AnnuityStraightTalk.com for the tools that will enable you to make a more informed decision about Annuities.
I want you to have all the tools and knowledge possible before making a big financial decision. Check out the resources at www.AnnuityStraightTalk.com - annuity scams