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Originally Posted by fcgiii
Has anyone dealt with ARS and bought their hybrid annuities?. The say they are fiduciaries and claim they can get you annuities that go up with the market and never lose money.
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Make sure that you fully understand the "never lose money" promise. It is usually worthless. It only means that, if you sell the annuity and the stock market is lower than it was when you purchased the annuity, you will not lose the market value between the initial purchase date and the sale date. If the stock market goes up this year and down next year, they "imply" that your account only goes up. Not true. The "never lose money" calculation is only applied to the cumulative market loss over the entire time that you had the money invested. It does not apply to the annual ups and downs in the stock market. Also, most annuities have a 7-10 year surrender charge, and high annual maintenance fees. But, they define the maintenance fees and the surrender charge as "fees", not as lost money. And, you usually only get about 80 to 85 percent of the market increases, not 100 percent.