Tricks of the Trade - Equity Indexed Annuities
The TV remote passed by NBC Dateline on the way to ESPN this evening (arggh, Denver won, Warriors slim chance for playoffs...) and caught my attention with coverage on how sales people are trained to sell equity indexed annuities.
I know mortgage brokers who have gotten insurance licenses to sell
these products. The MO is to do a cashout refi and then invest the cash
into these long term annuities. The mortgage brokers make money on the
refi and the annuity commissions.
Dateline's Chris Hansen investigates the questionable sales techniques. The most interesting marketing tricks are paying for credible celebrity status. For $2,500, a firm offers to place the deceptive agent's name as the author of a book called Alligator Proofing your Estate. Another service offered by Annuity University (now a defunct site) provides a faux radio interview that agents provide as CDs to their clients in order to establish credibility.
Dateline's Chris Hansen investigates the questionable sales techniques. The most interesting marketing tricks are paying for credible celebrity status. For $2,500, a firm offers to place the deceptive agent's name as the author of a book called Alligator Proofing your Estate. Another service offered by Annuity University (now a defunct site) provides a faux radio interview that agents provide as CDs to their clients in order to establish credibility.
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