Annuities Under Fire: Are the Attacks Deserved?

Annuities-whether fixed, variable or equity indexed-have been the hot products sold by the life insurance industry for nearly two decades. Their sales far eclipse the sales of traditional life insurance products.

Annuities continue today to be the biggest selling life insurance product, despite hurricanes, downturns in the stock market and vast quantities of bad press about the product.

Pundits in the financial and popular press, regulators, and politicians all like to bad-mouth annuities-particularly variable annuities-but with special emphasis on the evils of deferred annuities in general. Although there is no "official" definition for a "deferred" annuity, the industry generally accepts the definition used for federal income tax purposes-i.e., a deferred annuity is one where annuity payments begin more than one year from the date of issue of the contract.

Annuities Under Fire: Are the Attacks Deserved?
Source: Insurance News Net