Page 161 - Ready Set Retire

Ready. Set. Retire!

back. It might be a good time to get off this train before it is
too late.

It isn’t too late. Not only have the above not lost money in the
meltdown; nor have the millions of people, including our
clients, who have discovered the latest breed of “hybrid”
annuities. This is a wonderful new concept, created by the
insurance industry during the 1990s to compete with the
soaring stock market. And compete it has. So much so that the
SEC tried its best in 2008 (turning a blind eye to the abuses
that crashed the markets) to regulate them out of existence, but
the courts and Congress stepped in and saved them.

So what are they and why are they important to you? Hybrid
Annuities, aka Fixed Index Annuities (FIAs) provide you with
a portion of the market upside with none of the downside.

Consider this quote by Donald Trump from “The Art of the
Deal”: “As long as the basic concept remained intact—no
downside for me and a 50% share in the upside—it was an
extraordinary deal.”

This is the basis of what fixed indexed annuities do for
you...they eliminate the downside and give you a portion of the
upside of the stock market without market risk.

Here’s how it works. The interest rate the annuity pays you is
tied to a market index, such as the S&P 500. All FIAs limit

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