Published by Corporate Insight on 25 Apr 2008
Dateline NBC Catches Some Financial Advisor Predators
Dateline NBC correspondent Chris Hansen, of To Catch A Predator fame, has turned his attention from online sexual deviants to a different kind of predator that preys primarily on the elderly. Reports of unscrupulous investment professionals pushing annuities on unsuited investors are nothing new in the financial service world. The annuity industry has fought a long battle to change the public’s poor image of their product in an effort to regain investor confidence. While we are convinced this is a case of a few bad apples, a black cloud continues to hang over these retirement products as allegations of unethical sales behavior continue to surface.
Much of the stigma surrounding annuities can be attributed to the negative publicity fixed annuities, specifically the Indexed variety, have received over the past few years. The biggest culprit in the inappropriate sale of fixed annuities is Allianz Life, the nation’s leading seller of indexed annuities. The firm has been involved in numerous lawsuits since 2004 with the most recent being a 10.05 million dollar settlement in California on charges that their advisors replaced 126 fixed annuities for unsuited elderly customers ages 84 or 85.
