$20,000 Average Commission for Annuity Salesperson
I have said on this blog that the Wealth Management Industry want a slice of the $40B they believe we Baby Boomers have. We will become their primary source of income if we don’t watch out.
Once again I will qualify this by saying that not all wealth manager
s are like this.
It’s still a Free Country though and so Baby Boomers can still say ‘No’ to the expensive hyped-up investments they sell. However their marketing machine is built on fear and greed and they play on our fear and greed with their sales pitches not only to us but to people they want to recruit to sell their products.
The Tsunami of Wealth Mangers wanting to help us invest our Nest Egg in Retirement has begun. The first wave is to recruit an army of sales people attracted by greed and teach them how to put fear in Seniors and Baby Boomers so they will hand over their money to them for “investing”.
I came across this one Prospect to Profits whilst researching this post.
This is what the sales page is telling prospective annuity/insurance sales people.
- Increase Your Average Commission to over $20,000 per client.
- Use Highly Responsive Postcards and Free Reports on Seniors who never attend Seminars.
- Don’t waste time increasing the number of clients, but increase your average commission.
- How to get prospects begging him to put money into fixed annuities.
- How to make REAL money.
- You will have more equity index annuity sales and insurance leads than you can imagine.
- These ingenious marketing ideas have been successfully tested in a rural area in the Deep South.
- You can earn 8% Commission – that’s $80,000 on a $1,000,000 sale.
Right now with all the uncertainty in the stock market and the credit crunch I’m sure Seniors and Baby Boomers are very worried about having enough money to last them. So using that fear and despite the negative view of annuities they may be an easy target.
I actually believe there is a place for annuities in a retirement portfolio in some circumstances. But at no stage does this sales page mention anything about providing a service to the client and making sure that annuities are right for them. No wonder annuities have a bad name.
In contrast Glenn Daily of Glendaily.com is someone that seems to take a responsible approach to Annuities and as far as I can tell wants to be of service to his clients – not rip them off. Glenn Daily is a fee-only consultant. The site is full of good information and is well worth a visit.
He has several publications on a range of topics that are well worth reading too. I’d recommend downloading Annuities: Beyond the Sales Pitch and reading it to put annuities in focus. Knowledge is the key to knowing if they are for you.
Related posts:
- Baby Boomers need Short Term Luck for Long Term Survival in Retirement
- 22 Excuses why Baby Boomers fail to control their Nest Eggs in Retirement
- Baby Boomer Angst
- Baby Boomers – Free Report on What if You Retired in 2000?
- What Every Baby Boomer Should Know about Protecting Their Nest Egg in Retirement
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[...] SEC is getting involved because all is not what it seems with these annuities. High fees and commissions, complex ways of calculating returns, and pre-set caps to limit returns are some of the [...]
I sell insurance and annuities. Let me tell you, if you can find a company that is paying that commission, please send me an email right away so I can get appointed with them. Your figure of $20,000 AVERAGE per annuity sale is pure fantasy. The company that pitched those figures are trying to sell a system to an agent, and it’s filled with hyperbole.
Annuity commissions vary, and on a $250K sale a rep may earn $10K, he may earn $5K. Is this excessive? Well, I dunno: training and education costs, licensing, continuing education, relicensing, travel, office expense, auto…remember, no one is paying us a salary. We are covering all the expenses.
I also question your comment, “No wonder Annuities have a bad name.” I don’t know who you are talking to, but they definitely are not brain surgeons. Most people who have half a brain know that annuities give you a potential for HIGHER returns with NO potential for LOSS. Hey, how’s your mutual fund doing? I rest my case.
No one should put all their money into just one vehicle, and annuities are an excellent way to LOCK IN earnings WITHOUT the risk of loss of principal. This article rates a D.
Hello Steve,
Thank you a second time for taking time to respond to one of my posts. The post you are commenting on was written in June 2008. It does annoy me that the post date does not appear on the post page.
However when I wrote the post I was linking to a web page that was advertising what I included in the Post. I did not make it up. It was fact not fantasy. I copied the contents of the advert to my post.
“I came across this one Prospect to Profits whilst researching this post.”
The link was “Prospect to Profits”. I was astounded by the advertisement, so I wrote a post about it.
For your information it is my most popular post and I have considered taking it off my blog several times because I did not want to appear to be promoting such a site.
I agree with you the commissions you state are quite reasonable. I actually support commissions along with fixed fees. It is really up to the business selling annuities. I have worked for myself for 25 years. I know what it it like starting each month from zero and to be compensated for my skill, expertise and time.
At the time, 2008 I wrote the post there were many articles criticising Annuities by some very well respected financial journalists. Please refer to my other post you coments on fro some of the names.
Since then the industry has changed to meet many of the needs of the potential investors. I have no problem with that and in fact welcome it. Putting some money into an annuity makes sense for some people.
There is always the risk that the company selling the annuity could fail. So risk is still there and people need to consider it.
By all means argue the point but please try to not to attack me personally. I wrote the post in good faith and far from jumping on me you should be jumping on the person who advertised your industry in such a way to bring such disrespect to it.
Thank you.
David Bates begin_of_the_skype_highlighting end_of_the_skype_highlighting