ATTORNEY NEWSLETTER Brokers Avoiding Arbitration Awards Our Santa Clara FINRA arbitration attorneys make no secret about being opposed to binding arbitration clauses. Our attorneys, like many in the state of California, believes that requiring consumers to forego their right to a public trial and instead compelling them to air their […]

ATTORNEY NEWSLETTER Commissions and Kickbacks in the Annuity Market An oft-quoted truism in the financial industry is that some products are “sold, not bought.” This is especially true of annuities, a type of product that often seems to provide more of a benefit to the ¬¬company than to the consumer. […]

ATTORNEY NEWSLETTER Hybrid Long Term Care and Annuity Policies We’ve written before about the risks that long-term care policies and annuities can pose to seniors. All too often, the policies fail to live up to their inflated marketing materials, leaving seniors trying to make up a shortfall in their income, […]

ATTORNEY NEWSLETTER AXA Annuities AXA is among the largest insurance companies both in the U.S. and international markets, and is among the top sellers of both annuity and life insurance policies. Like many insurance companies, a large portion of AXA’s policyholders are seniors, retirees, and the elderly. This market can […]

ATTORNEY NEWSLETTER Unlicensed Insurance Brokers Our Santa Clara annuity fraud attorneys can tell you that seniors are already at risk when dealing with licensed brokers. High commissions, surrender penalties, hidden costs and fees: there are any number of dangers even when buying an annuity from the “safe” sources. However, the […]

ATTORNEY NEWSLETTER Do Whole Life Polices Cost Consumers More than they Make? Whole Life insurance is one of the two main categories of Life Insurance, the other being Term. Whole life and Term Life are exactly what they wound like: the latter is only in effect for a set time […]

ATTORNEY NEWSLETTER FINRA Ban’s a Broker for Improper Variable Annuity Sales FINRA, the financial Industry Regulatory Authority, is meant to help keep investors safe in the market for financial products. While many of their high-profile actions involve fines and corrections against major companies, they are also empowered to take actions […]

ATTORNEY NEWSLETTER Are annuities as stable as brokers claim? Annuity companies spend a great deal of time, energy, and marketing dollars to build the reputation of their product as a rock-solid investment. They’ve banked on this in their campaign to sell indexed annuities, products that make the impossible claim of […]

ATTORNEY NEWSLETTER The New Landscape of Fee-Based Annuities As the Department of Labor’s new rule comes into effect, requiring insurance and annuity salespeople to act as fiduciaries, financial companies are scrambling to adapt. One way that some companies are trying to deal with this change is to find a loophole […]

ATTORNEY NEWSLETTER Prudential, Jackson National, and the future of the annuity As the Department of Labor requires more insurance brokers to act as fiduciaries, and as FINRA continues its investigation into variable annuities, it’s clear that the increased scrutiny is having a bit of a shriveling effect on the market […]