Agent Licensing test is hard

Is the new plan protected by the pre funded PBGC fund for up to $6000+ per month like her pension was? Variable Annuities have no guarantee protection of the cash value & the Income guarantee is only guaranteed by the carrier if they are still in business. If they are not in business, the client will only have potential protection after many years when the Guaranty Association assesses other carriers for the failed carrier. Check out what is going on with Colorado Bankers Annuity clients right now

I am just pointing out that you can't be stating this is all perfect planning & better than what they had in such a guaranteed manner. It may be better or it may not.

Well that is why we only do biz w financially strong CO’s. This is w AIG.
Seems to me w any kind of ins, a 1st bottom line condition is to make sure the co is financially sound w high ratings on financial strength! Either whether buying or selling it.
& of course many pensions are way under funded. Didn’t look this one up. But high % are. Of course the pension failures hit high income persons like airline pilots the worst.
But while there are those guaranty groups, who wants to have to use that? No thanks. Avoid that by only dealing w financially strong CO’s.
& as I mentioned this is of course only part of her retirement or other income. & her income base w all of these needs to grow for awhile before she is ready to retire. So will be looking more at the other pieces as well.
 
Let me clarify this point very clearly:

The company covers themselves. That's what compliance is for - to protect the company, then the client, then the agent.

Now, if the company doesn't provide training, whose fault does that become? The company. The company is at fault. (Ever wonder why we have specific annuity product training these days? It's not for our education. It's so the company can say "yes, the agent went through product training.")

If the company provides all the disclosures, etc., and the agent/advisor doesn't go through them and just has the client initial & sign... that's on the agent/advisor.
I was speaking of liability.
But they also very carefully screen annuity applications because they are higher commission products where there has been a lot of abuse. We don’t want to have any agents among those. So they very carefully review applications for suitability & all before approving it.
Also we have help. I had our Reg VP assisting me w this one especially since we had just put in place a new procedure to compare new & replacement. & yeah my experience is that clients typically do not care to read all the disclosures. So it is up to agent to make sure that important points are covered & understood. & especially annuities can be confusing w the account value & the income base.
But since much of our client base is young families annuities are not what we are recommending for most. Just suitable mature market clients.
 
financially strong CO’s. This is w AIG.
Seems to me w any kind of ins, a 1st bottom line condition is to make sure the co is financially sound w high ratings on financial strength!

Fair enough. But that AIG name rings a bell. Were they the company that got into illiquid investments & derivatives that required the US government to loan them almost $100Billion (not million), to avoid catastrophe. Not saying it will happen, just pointing out a pension has guarantees that insurance policies can't match as fully guaranteed.

This was less than 15 years ago when AIG needed to be rescued. https://www.google.com/amp/s/insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/article/what-went-wrong-at-aig/amp
 
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Do not confuse product licensing for expertise in problems to solve. The #1 agent in the world (does business in over 50 countries - not states... COUNTRIES)... does NOT have securities licensing and he solves problems at a VERY HIGH LEVEL well beyond my understanding (and I'm reasonably savvy).

Securities licensing does NOT guarantee retirement planning competence at all.

If you're curious, his name is Dr. Sanjay Tolani and here's my webinar with him from the other day:


as I mentioned in another post, yeah licensing just makes someone legal. But I was referring to what a person is able to OFFER to clients. We are not financial planners & our target market is neglected middle income families who need to get started. & then continue protecting their income & growing their wealth.
But also years ago before I got started in this biz we had a friend that put together limited partnerships. He did biz w my parents. & then I made the mistake of also investing in some. I was totally outside the suitability bracket as far as assets & income. & he knew it. But he thought it was good. I invested in 1 w short turn around & made a good return. & then made the mistake of investing again. They were not scams or anything, just on the high risk side suitable for those who could afford to lose the money which was not me.
Years later I commented to him about them not having been suitable. Now he was way more sophisticated than me in putting together those deals. But I was shocked by his response which was that it would have been suitable if it had worked. (They were to be short term investments in car washes or something else. Just early stages. Well 1 of them got hung up when anchor tenant which was a grocery store was in a merger so backed out, leaving the others waiting as the expenses continued.). So he totally did not understand suitability. & he was in the realm of higher net worth supposedly sophisticated investors. Of course those were unregulated investments.
I learned some lessons the hard way.
& my comment was directed not at financial planners, but rather those who are just ins licensed trying to be retirement people & who of course ONLY have fixed vehicles available to them.
 
I was speaking of liability.

So was I.

my comment was directed not at financial planners, but rather those who are just ins licensed trying to be retirement people & who of course ONLY have fixed vehicles available to them.

I've helped to train those who are "just ins licensed" "trying to be retirement people & who of course ONLY have fixed vehicles available to them."

Just so you know, there's no such thing as a "financial planner license". It doesn't exist (despite the CFP Board trying to be CPA-wannabe's calling their designation/certification a 'license').

https://www.dynamicadvancedwealth.com/post/2018/06/18/titles-designations-and-compensation-oh-my
 
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