Page 48 - Know-So Money, Hope-So Money, Retirement Secrets Wall Street Doesn't Want You to Know

account’s growth in the same year. Effectively, what you have done is
to withdraw 20% of the account and reduced your 8% interest to 6.8%
as a result of the fee. I tell people in the rare cases when they need more
than 10% to go ahead and take it. It’s not the end of the world.

I understand printed surrender charges, which are disclosed before you
buy an annuity, seem scary. “What if I need my money and I have to
pay a fee to get it?” is likely what you are thinking. But…have you ever
signed a prospectus that basically said you can lose your shirt, but
because there is not a printed schedule of the market’s volatility charges
and because you think everybody else is doing it, it must be okay?

I have had people come into my office and show me statements with as
much as 50% losses; but because it was not in print in the form of a
penalty schedule before they bought, they bought anyway. I have never
seen a fixed annuity with a 50% surrender charge. Surrender charges
are completely within your control and don’t come into play unless you

make that choice. Further, the market’s volatility “charges” happen to
you involuntarily. One more thing…there is such a thing as a Fixed
Index Annuity that delivers 100% liquidity of the initial premium any
time you want it, with no surrender charges!

4. “My broker doesn’t like fixed annuities.”

No kidding. Approximately $20 billion a year is flowing out of
brokerage accounts into index annuities. Not only doesn’t your broker
like them, the whole investment community doesn’t like them.

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