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Jan 20, 2019 by |

San Francisco and California Annuity and Financial Elder Abuse Attorneys: High Pressure Annuity Sales Tactics

ATTORNEY NEWSLETTER

Beware the Hard-Sell Free Steak Dinner

High Pressure After a Free Meal

Seniors and retirement investors grow anxious in a volatile stock market. Insurance agents seize on that anxiety to push annuities and life insurance as “safer” investments for the future.  One sales tactic is to offer a free meal to lure consumers, especially seniors, to a “seminar” that inevitably follows the free food.  The “seminar” in reality descends into a hard sell.  Watch out. 

The San Francisco annuity and financial elder abuse lawyers recommend seniors especially avoid life insurance and deferred annuities of any kind.[1] If you’re over 60 and already purchased an annuity contract here in San Francisco or elsewhere in California and have suffered a loss due to cancellation, replacement, full or partial surrender or high fees, call the California financial elder abuse and annuity attorneys at Evans Law Firm, Inc. today at 415-441-8669 for a free review of your policy.  A list of major carriers in California appears below.

An investigative reporter for The New York Times recently accompanied his eighty-year-old aunt to an agent’s free steak dinner held at a fancy hotel in Southern California.[2]  Before the meal, the agent passed out a chart showing an equity indexed annuity outperforming the S&P.  Buried in fine print below the chart was a disclosure that the chart did not show the effect of reinvested dividends.  An expert later confirmed that in fact the S&P outperformed the subject annuity by 33.72 percent with reinvested dividends.  The reporter also discovered that the carrier had discontinued the very annuity depicted.  Still further investigation revealed that the State had issued a cease-and-refrain order against the agent for offering “unqualified” securities to an ailing senior who lost the equity in his home in a real estate investment promoted by the agent. The agent refused to answer any of the reporter’s questions about his past.

The reporter sums up his free steak dinner experience this way:

You attend, you eat free food and by the time the cheesecake arrives, you may feel you owe a salesperson a one-on-one meeting.

Then you’re on the hook. If these meals didn’t catch lots of people, salespeople wouldn’t keep paying for them.

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Bottom line is beware the sales pitch that comes with a free meal. Never buy on the spot and always consult a professional with nothing to gain by your purchase and review any proposal with your tax advisor.  If you or a loved one has suffered loss on an equity indexed annuity or any other annuity in San Francisco or elsewhere in California, contact San Francisco and California annuity and financial elder abuse attorney Ingrid M. Evans and the other attorneys at Evans Law Firm at (415) 441-8669, or by email at <a href=”mailto:info@evanslaw.com”>info@evanslaw.com</a>. Our attorneys have experience with complex financial contracts and large insurance companies.  We can help guide your case through a jury trial or toward an equitable settlement.  We handle cases involving physical and financial elder abuse, qui tam and whistleblower law, nursing home abuse, whole life insurance and universal life insurance, and indexed, variable, and fixed annuities.

Annuities and life insurance produce large sales commissions for brokers but are often inappropriate products for consumers, especially seniors. Leading providers and distributors of life insurance and fixed, variable and fixed indexed deferred annuities in California are listed below.  We are not in any way suggesting that any of these carriers or distributors has done anything wrong.  Rather, the list is provided solely as a reference for our readers.

AIG/American General Life Insurance Company

Allianz Life Insurance Company of North America

American Equity Investment Life Insurance Company

American General Life Insurance Company/AIG

American National Life Insurance Company

Ameriprise Financial/RiverSource Life Insurance Company

Ameriprise Financial/Securities America, Inc.

Athene Annuity & Life Assurance Company

Athene Annuity and Life Company

Athene USA

Aviva Life Insurance Company

AXA Equitable Life Insurance Company/AXA US

Bankers Life Insurance and Casualty Company

Brighthouse Financial, Inc./MetLife

Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Crump Life Insurance Services, Inc.

CUNA Mutual Group/CMFG Life Insurance Company

EquiTrust Life Insurance Company

Fidelity & Guaranty Life Insurance Company

Forethought Life Insurance Company/Global Atlantic Financial Group

Genworth Financial, Inc.

Genworth Life and Annuity Insurance Company

Genworth Life Insurance Company

Global Atlantic Financial Group/Forethought Life Insurance Company

Guardian Life Insurance Company

Guggenheim Partners/Security Benefit Life Insurance Company

ING USA Annuity and Life Insurance Company

Jackson National Life Insurance Company

John Hancock Life Insurance Company

Lincoln Benefit Life Company

Lincoln Financial Group

Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company

Merrill Lynch Life Agency Inc.

Metlife/Metropolitan Life Insurance Company/Brighthouse Financial, Inc.

Minnesota Life Insurance Company

National Western Life Insurance Company

Nationwide Life Insurance Company

New York Life Insurance Company

North American Company for Life and Health Insurance

Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company

Oxford Life Insurance Company

Pacific Life Insurance Company

Principal Financial Group

Prudential Life Insurance Company

Raymond James Insurance Group

RiverSource Life Insurance Company/Ameriprise Financial

Securities America, Inc./Ameriprise Financial

Security Benefit Life Insurance Company/Guggenheim Partners

Symetra Life Insurance Company

Transamerica Life Insurance Company

Unum Life Insurance Company of America

Voya/Reliastar Life Insurance Company

Wells Fargo Advisors

World Financial Group Insurance Agency, Inc.

[1] We do not provide investment or tax advice but our litigators represent senior policyholders who lose money through cancellations, surrenders or fees on these contracts.

[2] You can read the full article here: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/30/your-money/retirement-annuities-steak-dinner.html.

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