Insurance Regulators Focus on Abusive Sales PracticesWritten by Tony Novak
State insurance regulators are focusing their efforts on a short list of five consumer problems areas related to improper sale of variable annuities and life insurance. The problem areas include: 1) 1035 exchanges, 2) variable annuities inside of qualified accounts, 401(k)s or IRAs, 3) failure to fully disclose costs and fees, 4) comparing sub-accounts to mutual funds, and 5) improper or unrealistic product illustrations. While actual extent of problems in these areas is not known, some industry observers believe that one or more regulations was violated in sale of majority of variable annuities and variable life insurance polices. The vast majority of sales practice violations are not reported to regulators because investor is not even aware that a violation has occurred. Financial damage, if visible at all, is often not apparent until many years later. If you believe that you have been victim of sales misconduct when buying a variable annuity or variable life insurance policy, then you basically have two options: report incident to regulators in your state or consult a private adviser. Both are long and tedious processes, but only second option is likely
| | Shopping Tips (3)Written by Rick Tangri
---+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+ Shopping Tips: 1. Some people spend up to $8,000 for a stereo system. The music that it can produce is very high in fidelity. However, it will not be ten times better than a system that costs one-tenth that. Rule of thumb- above $1,000 return falls down. Mid-priced systems from $600 to $1000 offer best value. If you do want best: expensive speakers should be a priority.
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