Annuities Are for Do-It-Yourselfers: Shootin' It Straight With Stan

Welcome to Shootin It Straight With Stan. I am Stan The Annuity Man, America's annuity agent licensed in all 50 states. Today's topic is Annuities Are for Do-It-Yourselfers.

‌For all of you do-it-your-selfers out there who have been managing your own money and running it through the Fidelitys and the Vanguards and the TDs and the Schwabs and all those great firms out there, annuities are right up your alley because they are do-it-yourself products. And if anyone is trying to charge you a fee to manage an annuity, you have to ask, "What? Why are you doing that?" The one that slays me that I can't even imagine the gall of someone asking for this fee is anything fixed. Fixed annuity products are:

• Single Premium Immediate Annuities.
• Deferred Income Annuities.
• Qualified Longevity Annuity Contracts.
• Traditional Fixed Annuities.
• Multi-Year Guarantee Annuities.
• Fixed Index Annuities.

Anybody who tries to charge a fee, especially on the Index Annuity side, is insane. Anyone who's trying to do that shouldn't be charging a fee.

Now, I'm going to get a lot of blowback. I'm going to get a lot of heads of annuity divisions at brokerage firms that are trying to charge fees on annuities to send me ugly emails and historical information. I'm going to vomit all over it and hit the delete button. If they call me, I'm going to blast them like I always do factually. Give me a break.

No-Load Variable Annuity

The only caveat to that is a no-load Variable Annuity. There are a couple of them out there that have no fees, in that, if someone's going to actively manage the separate accounts that you and I call mutual funds and do that actively and do it well, then they could possibly charge you a fee. But even then, if you're going to do that, buy a no-load Variable Annuity and manage it yourself. These are do-it-yourself products; they all are do-it-yourself products. Let me explain how that works.‌

Run Quotes

If you visit my site, you can run SPIA, DIA, QLAC, and Income Rider quotes. You can see a live feed of the best MYGA products on the planet. You can make your decision on your terms and your timeframe, and you can run as many quotes as you want, and as many different parameters as you want. There are no limits; nobody is going to call you, show up at your doorstep, or any of that. You can run those quotes, look at the contractual numbers, and make your decision.

Will Do, Not Might Do

But here's the key. I always tell people you own an annuity for what it will do, not what it might do. And the "will do" are the contractual guarantees of the policy. Never, ever, ever, ever, ever buy an annuity for the hypothetical, theoretical, backtested, projected, hopeful agent return scenarios and what I call unicorns chasing the butterflies, which never happens, or "If you'd owned it 10 years ago, sir, look at what would've happened 10 years ago if you'd owned it." Give me a break. If you'd done 100 sit-ups every day for 10 years 10 years ago, you'd have six-pack abs, but you don't.

Commoditized Products

But once you look at annuities as for what they are, they're contracts. If you buy them for the contractual guarantees only and focus only on the contractual guarantees, regardless of the type you choose, you have then commoditized the product. You have turned that product and strategy into a commodity.

Why is that important? It's because when you're buying a contractual guarantee, you can shop all carriers for the highest contractual guarantee. You've eliminated the agent advisor said, "I've looked at all of these, sir, and this is the best one." Crapola in Italian. That's crap. That means that if they sell enough of it, they get to go to Bora Bora for free with their wife, girlfriend, boyfriend, husband, or whatever applies for incentive trips. No, it's commoditized. You buy it for the contractual guarantee, and you shop all carriers to see at that point in time which one of those carriers is bidding on your business with the highest contractual guarantee, knowing that those quotes are like a gallon of milk that they expire every seven to 10 days.

It's a do-it-yourselfer paradise. It's such a do-it-yourselfer paradise that I'm surprised that the CEO of Home Depot hasn't called me and said, "Stan, let's do a joint deal where the annuity man is inside of Home Depot," or Lowe's, or some do-it-yourself place. It's that correlated. Or what kills me is the do-it-yourself sites for stocks and bonds. For whatever reason, I know that they charge a fee, and they make a lot of money on that, but they really do not do the annuity category justice.

They should do a partnership with me and let me handle that or let my platform handle that because we've commoditized the product, just like some of these sites have commoditized mutual funds or commoditized ETFs or commoditized the trading of stocks where you don't have to pay for a stock trade anymore. They commoditized it. I'm doing the same thing in the annuity space. I've commoditized it. There is no better one. There is no better carrier. There is no better product. When you strip it down to the contractual guarantees, it's a do-it-yourself dream.

Stan's Wish

Now you've stripped out all the sales pitches, the BS, the hype, the overpromise, the hypotheticals, and the theoreticals. One of the things I want to do out here before I die, and my annuity Learjet that's leased hits the mountain with the logo on the plane that says, "Stan The Annuity Man," I want to do away with all these backtested numbers. I want to do away with, "Well, if you owned it 10 years ago, sir, this is what you do." That's crap.

I also wish upfront bonuses on products would go away. We don't have to do that as an industry. If we would strip it down like I have for people, making annuities simple, which is what I've done, making annuities where a nine-year-old understands it and can explain it to their second-grade classmates and the teacher would understand it as well. Why? Because we're looking at contractual guarantees. So, if you are a do-it-yourselfer out there, this is paradise.

Annuity Paradise

The Annuity Man is paradise for you because you can shop to your heart's content. You can run quotes 24/7, 365. No one will call you, show up at your doorstep, or bug you. You're going to be able to shop. You're going to be able to look at all carriers, all contractual guarantees, and all quote parameters, and you're going to be able to make your decision on your terms and on your timeframe. Because most of you out there, when you go to Home Depot, you might have one question, but then you want them to leave you alone. Am I right about that? Or Lowe's or wherever you go. It's the same thing for wherever you're buying stocks and bonds. You might have some person who might be giving you advice here and there, but at the end of the day, you're pulling the trigger; you're making the decision. All you need is enough information, factual information, truthful information, not salesy information to make a good decision.

Telling the Truth

If you said, "Stan, tell me your business model," number one is to tell the truth. My grandfather told me all the time, "Stan, if you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything. You just tell the truth. Let the chips fall where they may." He was right. His name was Hunter Garrison. Hunter was hunting. That dog will hunt, Hunter. That was right. That's our business model.

But the other part of the business model is contractual guarantees only. We never, ever veer into hypotheticals and theoretical. "Well, sir, it could do this. It might do this, it can do this, it should do this. It could do this." No, it will do this. And do-it-yourselfers, this is it. Annuities are for do-it-yourselfers: all annuity types. If you want lifetime income, then you answer two questions. What do you want the money to contractually do? When do you want those contractual guarantees to start? From those two answers, you can pinpoint, and we can help you pinpoint the product that will provide the highest contractual guarantee. Not a hypothetical, highest contractual guarantee. And you can base that do-it-yourself or decision on that highest contractual guarantee number. Now, at the time of this blog, there has to be a licensed agent who is with you on the phone or meeting with you.

We do everything on the phone out of my Las Vegas office that goes through the application with you. But in the near future, check the date on this, I predict you'll be able to click a button and do-it-yourself. In fact, I've trademarked all the no-agent needed stuff with annuities because I think that's where we're headed. And my site has been built for that eventual transition. My site will be the first one ready for that. We'll just flip the switch. We know the changes that'll be made. Click, click, click, change, and it'll be a direct-to-consumer site. It's as close as it can get now, but when that happens, we will do that. Why? Because annuities are for do-it-yourselfers.

Contractual Realities

You don't need advice or a sales pitch on a contractual guarantee. I mean, that's what annuities are. People say, "Well, why do you just focus on the contractual guarantees?" Because when you get an annuity policy in the mail, guess what that policy is? A contract. So, you better base that decision on the contractual realities of that policy, not the hypotheticals. And I'm totally blown away that we're the only ones out here blowing that horn. Now, yes, the complicated products are higher commission products, and all annuity commissions are built into the product, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah; who cares? The point is that the pro-consumer products are easy to understand.

The pro-consumer products are the ones that we strip out everything and look at the contractual guarantees, but what we've done now and what's making the industry not happy, but if they just follow me, the industry would triple, quadruple in a year. It really would. We're taking the complex products and stripping them out just to the contractual guarantees, which then commoditizes it so that they do it so that you can decide on that contractual guarantee. So, don't be afraid of annuities. There are a lot of idiots out there that say, "I'm never buying an annuity," yet they love their social security payments. Or some will say, "Well, all annuities are expensive," yet they'll take their pension payment from their union, the company, or wherever.

Yes, the annuity industry has earned its bad reputation for some of the sales practices. Still, the products are fantastic when you strip them down to the contractual guarantees, and you're transferring risk to solve the four things' annuities solve. Principal protection, income for life, legacy, and long-term care, and that acronym is PILL. I'll do it again. Principal protection, income for life, legacy, long-term care, confinement care. If you don't need to solve for one form of those items in the PILL, you do not need an annuity type, period. Even though you already own the best inflation annuity on the planet, Social Security.

So, walk away from this blog with annuities are for do-it-yourselfers. And the best do-it-yourselfer annuity site out there is The Annuity Man, because we built it for that. I built it for the do-it-yourselfer. I built it for the A personalities who can make their own decisions. They just need the facts and the information to make a good decision because that's who I am. So, I built it for me, and I built it for you.

Take a look, read and download the books, and watch the videos. I've done thousands of videos. I'm going to continue to do thousands of videos and educate you so that you can get educated on your terms and your timeframe, and you can make a decision after running quotes and doing all that stuff on my site. I hope you're an annuity do-it-yourself, and if you are, you now know where to go: The Annuity Man . Have fun. Run as many quotes as you want. I mean, it doesn't matter. I'll pay for as many as you run. I don't care. I want you to have the information.

My name is Stan The Annuity Man. I'm America's annuity agent for a reason, the number one agent out here, and I hope that you become a client. I really do. You'll be taken care of by the best team in the business. That's Shooting It Straight With Stan. I'll see you next time.

Never forget to live in reality, not the dream, with annuities and contractual guarantees! You can use our calculators, get all six of my books for free, and most importantly book a call with me so we can discuss what works best for your specific situation.