What Annuity Is Offering A 35% Bonus?

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Hi there, Stan the Annuity Man, America's annuity agent, licensed in all 50 states, top agent in the

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country, tallest agent in the country, pioneer of contractual guarantees only, and married for 37

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years. That's a lot. That's a big bio. Today's topic is, what company's offering a 35% bonus?

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What carrier is offering these upfront bonuses? Stan, what's an upfront bonus? Oh boy, are you in

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for a treat? If you're thinking upfront bonus is what you need and it sounds really good, then you

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better hang in and you better strap in, son, 'cuz I'm getting ready to come at you with the truth.

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Alright, now, you ready? What annuity's offering a 35% bonus, 25% bonus, 20% bonus, 10% bonus,

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15% bonus, 40% bonus? So, let me paint you a picture that never is going to happen,

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okay? Insurance company, early morning, nobody's there. A Mercedes pulls up to

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the front, CEO gets out, walks in, grabs a cup of coffee, sits at his desk, and goes,

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"You know what? We're going to give money away. We're going to take the money that this company

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has earned over hundreds of years, and we're just going to give money away to the people,

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to the Americans, to the hardworking Americans." Why? Good question. It's because we care.

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That never happens, okay? There's no philanthropist at annuity companies,

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only pure capitalists. Annuity companies, they're not going to give anything away. So,

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if you went to the bad chicken dinner seminar or the expensive steak dinner seminar where you got

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the filet mignon. And Johnny Appleseed agent said, "We can get you 35% bonus on this. So,

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you know, if you put 100 grand in, you got 135 grand." And you elbow Martha. Martha goes,

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"What?" That sounds pretty good, Martha. They're gonna give us 35 grand. Please

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tell me you're not that stupid. As they say in Las Vegas, where my offices are located,

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if you don't know who the rube and the sucker is at the table, it's you.

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Buying an annuity for a bonus is like buying a car for the stereo system. Envision yourself

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going to the Toyota dealership and saying, "I really like that Land Rover. I don't care

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anything about the transmission or nothing. Show me the stereo system. That's all that

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matters is I want to hear my tunes." That's you buying an annuity for an upfront bonus.

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An upfront bonus is nothing more than part of the overall contractual guarantees. Question,

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how many pennies are there in a dollar? Answer, 100 pennies in a dollar. That's

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not changed. That's never going to change, okay? So, when an annuity company says,

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"I'm going to give you an upfront bonus." They're taking something away. Somewhere in the policy.

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Now, typically, upfront bonuses are attached to what's called fixed index annuities. Nothing

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against them. They're CD products. They're not market products. So, if Johnny Appleseed agent's

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saying, you get market upside with no downside, look at these back-tested numbers. Full of crap,

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okay? And those back-tested numbers should be illegal to show, in my opinion, if I was

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annuities czar for a day. And boy, wouldn't that be a nice day because I would clean this mess up.

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All right? So part of the overall contractual guarantee, and typically index annuities are

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sold with what's called income riders, which we like. Those are the contractual guarantees for

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lifetime income that start at a future date. And typically, that bonus is attached to the income

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rider, which is fine. Doesn't matter either way. Because when you run quotes at my site, if you run

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income rider quotes at theannuityman.com, we're quoting all carriers with bonuses,

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without bonuses. Doesn't matter to us because it's all about the contractual guarantees.

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You know what's something interesting? Little factoid here. Love factoids. The

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annuities with upfront bonuses do not typically provide the highest

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contractual guarantee. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. We don't care.

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It's just all part of the contractual guarantee. But most of the time, they do not.

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The other thing about upfront bonuses, and boy, don't get me started. If someone approaches you

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and says, "You know what? You got this annuity and it's got these surrender charges on it,

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but you can buy my annuity, Johnny Appleseed annuity, with the upfront bonus, and it'll make up

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for the surrender charges." That agent should lose their license immediately. Garbage. So for all you

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agents out there, [email protected]. Email the hate. I don't care. "Well,

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I got this one out of a thousand case." Okay, show it to me. I want to see that.

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Another thing, let's talk about the bonuses, okay? Draw a line down a blank sheet of paper

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visually. This side is the index side. Caps, spreads, participation rates, who cares,

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okay? It's going to be CD returns. This side's the income rider side. This is where the bonus goes,

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on the income rider side. This side can only be used to calculate what your future income is going

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to be. You can't transfer it. You can't peel off the interest that's growing at some high rate.

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You can't cash this in. This is the fungible, real money, the index side, not the income rider side.

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When we look at income later quotes, income at a future date, we're looking at income riders and

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deferred income annuities. We're quoting both. We're going to tell you about both. We're going

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to show you both. You can go to my site and do it yourself if you want to. But the upfront bonus,

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who cares? Okay, it's attached there. It still doesn't matter. "Well, Stan, he said 35% upfront

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bonus and the income rider is going to grow at 8%. You can't beat that." Who cares? It's all

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about the income number. I've seen lots of times the income riders that don't have the high growth

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rate and the income riders that don't have the upfront bonus pay out the most contractually.

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"Well, Stan, how's that even possible? How's that mathematically possible?" Well,

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it is. 100 pennies in the dollar.

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What I'm trying to tell you is if there's agents watching this, listen to me. Don't

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be a schmuck and lead with the upfront bonus. That is candy for the stupid. And if you're pushing it,

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you're the stupid, and you're hurting the industry. Be transparent with people,

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okay? Tell them the truth. Am I perfect? No. My wife will vouch for that, okay? My employees at

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my office at The Annuity Man will vouch for that. But we're not pushing bonuses. That's a joke.

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I know why the carriers do it. And to the carriers' credit,

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they will explain what a bonus really is. But once it gets out there in the hinterlands,

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when the agents start selling it and pitching it,

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it becomes this grandiose thing that's too good to be true. And if it sounds too good to be true,

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it is every single time with annuities. The perfect product doesn't exist. You quote

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all carriers, bonus or no bonus, for the highest contractual guarantee. You're smarter than that.

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Here's the thing about chapter 2, retirement, whatever you want to call it. There's no do-overs,

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okay? There's no mulligans. You can't step up to the tee and shank one into the water and say,

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"Well, I'm gonna put another ball on the tee, hit another one." There's no mulligans. There's

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no do-overs when you're choosing annuities for lifetime income. You're choosing annuities for

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your income floor. Slow the game down. Do your research. There's no urgency. If someone says,

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"Well, you better lock this in because that bonus is going away." He's an idiot.

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He or she is trying to pay the bill or something, but they're not thinking about you.

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Anytime someone says, "Well, you better lock that bonus in. Let's go ahead and fill out the

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paperwork." No, no, no, no, no, no. Annuities are commodity products. You shop all carriers

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for the highest contractual guarantee. I hope I've made myself clear. I am going to

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suffocate this topic until people understand that this bonus pitch is garbage. I'm going

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to squash it like a bug. And for anybody out there that wants to disagree with me on this,

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bring it on. You won't be the last flounder that I fillet, okay?

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As an industry, we have to tell the consumers the truth, okay? My grandfather told me a long

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time ago, if you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything. For the consumer out there,

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be careful. Just be careful. If it sounds too good to be true, it is every single time. Go to

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my site, run the quote yourself, look, see, talk to my people. They'll tell you. Schedule a call.

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One last thing. All of my team, they're all licensed in all 50 states, but they're not on

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commissions. We're not a hammer looking for nails, okay? Yes, we do get paid by the carrier under

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an agency-type setup, but everyone's licensed because they have to be to talk to you, okay?

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But they have no incentive to sell. They have incentive to help. I really hammered that P, help.

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One last thing. If you ever decided to want to be a client, you might want to

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look at this video above my head. It's going to count down. You're going to be able to click it,

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and I'm going to talk about how the process works in case you do make a decision to move

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forward with this. I go through the soup to nuts, front to back. You know,

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we can handle everything from start to finish, but I go through the details, and I mean that.

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My name is Stan the Annuity Man. See you next time.