I recently attended a dinner sponsored by a financial planner who offered us a steak dinner to listen to his pitch for lifetime annuities. Since I sometimes teach personal finance, I knew these valuable options are difficult to persuade people to consider, something like life insurance, because none of us likes to consider our inevitable fate. I wanted to see how a glib salesman would do it.
Before serving the steak, he spent an hour and a half recounting his personal story of business failure and dismissing other financial options as too risky. “Stock brokers hate me,” he claimed. He also said he doesn’t take fees for his advice or services. “Hmm, something for nothing!” I thought.
Knowing that risk and payment for real value are unavoidable in life, I was curious.
His offer was some kind of life time annuity. You give him a lot of money, and he promises to send you checks the rest of your life. Something like Madoff. The check amount would vary with your age, of course. The waiters told me that the steaks were scheduled to come before he let anyone ask crucial questions, so I left hungry.
What are the crucial questions? First, what is his monthly payoff rate, and how do they compare with annuities offered by TIAA-CREF and well-known insurance companies?
That would probably be revealed in a “free” office visit, when people might not have time to inquire about the competition. Secondly, how does this individual and his new company guarantee those payments until the end of your life, say 30 years from now? There is no insurance against another bankruptcy in his business life.
I do think lifetime annuities might well be part of everyone’s retirement planning. That’s what Social Security is. I urge all my friends to get competent and disinterested advice and not buy snake oil for every problem in our lives.
