Annuities are Exciting!

Speaker 1 00:00:05 This is annuity straight talk since 2008. Your host Brian Edison has helped clients nationwide navigate the complex market for a meeting with Brian's assistance. Hundreds of clients have achieved a profitable and secure retirement. I would know because Brian has answered many of my questions concerning annuities and retirement planning So that you can benefit as well. Let's get started. Here's Brian Speaker 2 00:00:49 Hello and welcome everyone to the annuity straight talk podcast, episode number 34, Brian Anderson here, founder and creator of annuity straight talk coming to you from Northwest Montana shores of Flathead lake. We've got an unexpectedly sunny day. Spring is on the way it's cold out there, but it was supposed to be really cloudy and I'm excited about it. So I got a little bit of a glare behind me. It doesn't make the best shot. Please bear with me because I quite enjoy it. And I'm probably going to go for a walk outside and get some fresh air after I'm done. But spring is on the way, and I'm very excited about that. Like to get the horses and meals out on the trail as soon as possible. And I'm looking forward to just a great summer coming up. So hope that any of you guys, any that want come and visit this summer, love to take you out for a cup of coffee, lunch, something like that, but get ahold of me. Speaker 2 00:01:37 If you have plans to travel to Montana, and I know gas prices are or may affect travel plans for some people, but I talked to one person last week, eh, big deal. So it's five bucks a gallon. I'm I'm still going and that's okay. So anyway, this week I want to talk about something that brought up. It's like a story that came up from about five or six years ago. And it's a chance for me to recap a few of the things that I've done since then. And some of the things that have we'd done very recently. And the reason I like that is a lot of people on this website that come here. Most people have never done business with me. Most people I've never even talked to them and that's fine, but you know, they're still here and they still read it. They still watch it. Speaker 2 00:02:16 And I figured, well, they must like it, but everybody needs to be reminded of what basically my philosophy over time, anyone new also doesn't, you know, maybe didn't see something that came out a month ago that could be very beneficial to them. And maybe they don't know a philosophy of mine that goes back several years, just kind of my overall belief system and feeling about how to plan for retirement using annuities or not. And so I think it's always good for kind of a recap to look at all the stuff that we've done. And so I don't mind kind of repeating a little bit of the information, but in situations like this, we're going to touch on several different topics. And if anybody has any questions, obviously give me a call 804 3 8 5 1 2 1. If you want to talk about it specifically to you schedule an appointment, annuity straight talk.com, schedule a call button pretty easy to get ahold of me. Speaker 2 00:03:04 I had a guy called me on Sunday last week. He said, w well, I didn't think you'd answer the phone. I was just sitting around and watching college basketball, big deal, phone rang. It's like, ah, what the heck picked it up? So it happens. And if you don't get me, just leave a message, I'll call you back. So anyway, this kind of goes back in the camp, figure out exactly how to do this, but the newsletter is written, but hasn't been published yet. And I figure probably, yeah, let's just share the screen. Huh? Then you can see the post itself and you can see it's in the editing stage, but I'm doing a preview on it. But, uh, the topic here is annuities are exciting. And this goes back to, uh, several years ago, I think it was 2017. I got invited to a, an annuity conference for a conference from one of the major brokerage companies. Speaker 2 00:03:50 And I thought, and I get invites to do this or that like weekends away, come see our sales team and come learn about these great ideas. And I never go to them. And it had been so long since I went to a conference. I thought, I, what the heck let's go. You know, it was down in San Antonio, Texas, and I kind of looked at the time dates and, and found out a couple of our bands were, you know, my wife and I have a couple of favorite bands that were playing. And so we went a few days early and caught some like Texas country music country, rock, Americana, whatever you want to call it, like just guys playing guitars and drums and, and sing a good, good catchy songs. And I think it's some of the best music you can get, because it's so hard to find original stuff anymore and, or authentic actual people that play instruments. Speaker 2 00:04:30 It's amazing. So I always say like, well, if you've never seen a guy play a trombone and a keyboard at the same time or looking, I mean, that takes like the motor coordination, you know, the, but it was fascinating. So, and we had a good time at the time. My, my wife was working at the local gym in Whitefish Montana, which is like, I always considered that gym to be kind of the, the monstrosity that spelled the end of this beautiful quirky little mountain town that I grew up in. It was one of those places. Like it's supposed to be a community project and it's great. And a lot of people like it, whatever. But once that came in, like then everything started being built to that standard. And all of a sudden you came up with just, I don't know, there's just, it was homogenous. Speaker 2 00:05:08 It just, there's nothing authentic or real. It's just all new and kind of nice. And so it went from being a town I grew up in, it was, it went from being like a town of railroaders and loggers to a town of like silicone valley refugees and hedge fund guys from the east coast. And it's like, Hey, this place just isn't as tough as it used to be. Um, still a beautiful spot. If you want to go visit, it's kind of a fun little town, but it's not quite what I remember it anyway. So she was in the gym and she was talking to some of her friends and she said she was going to San Antonio. Well, this is like, again, in my opinion, you go there to see someone to see or be seen. Right. And so it just, it's a social deal. Speaker 2 00:05:44 And I did, I can't, I can't stand that kind of thing. So anyway, but she was talking about it and said, Hey, we're going to San Antonio. And a couple of, there was a group of guys that worked for, I dunno, Merrill Lynch or whoever it was. They were in there on their lunch break, you know, pumping iron with their little on and stuff. And they said, oh, Hey, what are you going to San Antonio for? She said, well, my husband's got an annuity conference. And they, they like laugh. They're like, huh, annuities. That's really exciting. And she told me about it when she got home. And I like, I laughed. And just because of all the things and you guys heard me talk about it, it's like those guys have no idea what they're talking about. And I told her, I said an industry that's two and a half trillion in assets, 200 billion in sales annually with like perfect for baby boomers, retirement management, 10,000 baby boomers, turn 65 a day. Speaker 2 00:06:29 Like you're damn right. They're exciting. There's a lot you can do with it. So, and I've covered this a ton. And I, you know, I look at like those guys specifically, I don't know them, but I looked them up and none of them had been in the investment profession earlier than 2010. And so clearly they were just selling mutual funds, picking stocks, whatever. And they probably did pretty well. And they thought they were real hot shots. Right. But we're talking about something different now. And the reason why is I thought about this morning and I'll probably put it inside this newsletter at some point, cause it's not going to go out for another week or so. But do you guys realize that the answers to probably well over half the questions you have, the answers did not exist 15 or 20 years ago, even the questions themselves were not asked. Speaker 2 00:07:17 So this is a product for this time for these people, which is you guys, this is something that requires you to change everything you've ever thought about. Now, those guys add they're not wrong for them. Annuities. Aren't that exciting. They just don't know anything else except for picking stocks, picking stocks, picking stocks. So I look at it and say, well, I'm trying to deal with a different set of problems. They don't deal with retirees clearly. And that's the big issue. So again, I like, I always say to a lot of anybody who asks, you said they're not wrong and I don't disagree with them, but we are talking about two different things. I mean, that's the only extent to the philosophical differences I need to go. But I want to just, instead of giving you an idea, why it's, it's like, I'm just going to show you how consistently over time I have showed you the fundamental reasons why annuities are beneficial in retirement. Speaker 2 00:08:06 And for that, they are exciting. Now I can tell you at this point in time, I mean the market's up 2% today, it was down 3% yesterday, 2% the day before it was a nightmare. And I haven't had one person call and say, oh, am I okay? They know they're okay. And that's the big difference. And that's what you're looking for in retirement. That's why we're talking about two different things. So I'm going to start it off with like about a year ago, somebody had been on my list for awhile, emailed me and said, Hey, here's a Morningstar article. This guy wrote about index annuities. And so I checked it out and he said, could you comment on it? And I said, I'm going to do one better. Instead of write you a giant email, I'm going to feature the article in the newsletter. I'm going to go through all the lists because I mean, it's one thing. Speaker 2 00:08:49 If I can write a thousand word email to the guy who asked the question, it's even more beneficial. If I can put it on the newsletter for anyone else who may have run across the article or something similar. So it's called pros and cons of expert annuity advice. And that was the newsletter on February 21st, 20, 21 on the newsletter itself, you can check out the post, right? So the one thing, I guess we can't do it. But if you go to the newsletter main newsletter page where I'm going to send everybody from now on, just start just on the top, right of that top post is a search box and you can search any of the articles, any keywords, you can find stuff that goes back. I think we've got something like 1500 articles written over the past 10 or 12 years may not be that many, but it's well over a thousand different posts. Speaker 2 00:09:31 So anyway, but it was interesting in the Morningstar article, he was talking about things. He was factually incorrect in certain areas, in other areas, he was just speaking on a tangent, none of it specifically related to what index annuities do, what annuities do or how I'm trying to get people to use them. Okay. So, and the proof of that was something I wrote about six or eight months earlier, which was even advisors ask for my advice. And the reason I like that one is because this has happened several times. And I tell two stories in that article. And one was the best. One was a guy who was a guy who was a CFP. And he was about, oh, he was close to 60 or something like that. And he had been following the website for a while, watching videos and reading newsletters. And he liked it. Speaker 2 00:10:12 So he was a certified financial planner and he called me and he said, I'm a CFP. And I've never used annuities. We've done all accumulation stuff. That's the distinction, right? You're talking about accumulation. You'd probably don't use annuities unless you're in retirement, you want to protect assets. Right? So if you're just helping people get to retirement, that's accumulation at retirement, the game changes. And that's, that's the truth anyway. And he knew that and he said, well, I've never used annuities, but I've read what you said. And you're right. When I retire, I want to do some stuff different. So he said, I know you may not want to do this. If you're not making a commission, I kind of laugh. It's like, I do a lot of things without making a commission. But he said, is there any way you'd help me get set up so that I can, because I'm going to sell myself an annuity. Speaker 2 00:10:55 And I thought it was great. I'm like, of course, if you're honest with me, that's the best way to do it. Of course I'll help. So I gave him a couple of companies. I said, I generally like this one or this one, if you want for his situation, we talked about it a little bit. And I said, if you want to go through the details, I'm happy to do that. But here's my contacted the brokerage company. You can get you either product. And the brokerage guy called me. He said, what do you got in this? I said, I don't know. Good karma. I suppose. I mean, somebody asked me a question, I'll answer it honestly. So I don't have any problem with that, but he thanked me and sent me a nice Christmas present, which was cool. Anyway. So like that's where even advisors ask for my advice. Speaker 2 00:11:26 And then the bad side of that was a while earlier a guy had baited me saying, I want to plan for retirement. Here's my situation. And if we figure it out, I'll do business with you. And so we went through the deal and he really liked it. All, this makes so much sense. Okay, I get it. I get it. This is great. So I thought I had a nice sale. Send him the paperwork. He went, as far as he needed the paperwork. What else? What type of information do you need to gather for this? Right. And I sent him the paperwork, send it back when you're ready and never heard from him. So I called him the next week and it took me a while. I got ahold of him, but he's like, ah, he finally admitted. He said, oh no, that's okay. I'm a CFP too. Speaker 2 00:11:58 I've just never used annuities. One of my clients wanted them. And so, and I didn't know how to do it. So I just put the numbers in front of you and had you helped me figure it out. He didn't offer me anything for it. It wasn't his own deal. He lied to me, owns kind of people that are out there it's enough to make a guy go insane. But anyway, can't focus on the negative. So, but there are again, advisors have recognized it. And a lot of them come to me. I mean, this morning, I got a call from a guy, Hey, we got a team down here. We're trying to learn about annuities so we can sell them to clients. Are you going to help us? You know what, not beyond to any greater extent than I already have all the information's out here. Speaker 2 00:12:33 It's all in here. So if you're an advisor and you want to get the information by means, give me a call and I'll point you in the right direction. But it's all sitting there than others, a hundred and some videos on YouTube. There's more than a thousand articles on the, on the website. There's a search box. So you can search by keyword, social security, Medicare income planning, asset allocation, all sorts of stuff. And then some personal interest stuff. Everybody likes it when I tell stories, right? But it goes back. And one of the easiest key ones is probably I went and did the newsletter consistently. Now I used to do it like about 10 years ago. I did it in a very different way where I'd write the letter and I'd find a couple of applicable articles that people might like, and I'd send them out. Speaker 2 00:13:11 Right. But it was in the summer of 2018 where I started writing this newsletter the way you guys know it now. And so I wrote the case for annuities and retirement portfolio in September, 2018, put it out there because that is kind of the core fundamental of what I'm doing. And it talks about essentially the advantage that annuities have over bonds in a retirement portfolio. So it talks about where you draw income in a typical portfolio, how income annuities are different from accumulation annuities. But that's a really good one for anyone. Who's kind of just getting started in this. You think about, all right, what are they going to tell you at Edward Jones or Raymond, James, or Merrill Lynch or fidelity, what are they going to tell you again? And you may like that, and that's fine, but you need understand there's another option and there might be another benefit to doing it. Speaker 2 00:13:51 So that's the purpose of it is to have that core philosophy there. And then again, I took it a bit further. Did the annuity straight talk flux strategy? And this one, I linked to podcasts that a show can I did last summer because he's one of those sharp guys that was getting into annuities and recognize the value for retirees. And that's where he wanted to jump in. And so we decided to do that podcast together. Cause it's kind of introduction to that strategy through the podcast platforms. But again, it's all simple stuff. There's a fundamental advantage. And I would say like, I can, if somebody is telling you something different than I am, they're either wrong or they're talking about something else. So, and then it gets to, if you go into the past month or so month, month and a half, this is where they get exciting because you can talk about portfolio management. Speaker 2 00:14:39 You can talk about expert opinions that say they disagree, whatever it is, the numbers don't lie. All right. I told you how to beat the market with an annuity in the newsletter and podcast on January 5th. Okay. I told you, and it's not to say, I mean, some people say, well, should I put all my money into an annuity? Probably not, but I mean the numbers there, the mass there, it's been academically proven in books and research papers outside of this. But it's the idea that to tell people what types of things you can do with an annuity. And I mean, the biggest thing is like, if the annuities, if you got the annuity, you don't have to just sit there, right? You can use it, you can be proactive with it. And the results, if you develop a strategy for it, the results are pretty, a dramatic improvement in the possibilities you have for accumulation of assets and income generation retirement. Speaker 2 00:15:32 There's just no other way to say it. So, and then more recently, end of February, why not an annuity? And I've done this in a different context before as well, but we look at the last 20 year period in the market where we had substantial growth, but in a situation where you're taking income, when you're withdrawing from a portfolio for these people that I did the case study on, they were actually taking R and D. They didn't need the money. They were taking required minimum distributions past age, 72. And I looked at it and he said, and this is it's a couple that had their, all their money and Ken Fisher. And an interesting thing is they had a hundred percent of their money in the stock market in their early seventies as like, I don't know any model that suggests that's appropriate. Nobody ever says, I've never heard anyone say, especially when they're considering annuities, they're not looking for top line growth. Speaker 2 00:16:21 They just kind of want to preserve a little bit of assets. I don't know. And some people say they're a fiduciary. That's not in anyone's best interest to have 100% exposure to the stock market. So I'm just going to say that right now, say it publicly. That's inappropriate. But anyway, what, what we can determine is that with a quarter of his money in the annuity, he actually did better an accumulation standpoint than he would have if he kept it all in the stock market, even in an excellent period, just because the times in the market drop the annuity was the buffer where you could draw the money out and it would allow all the market assets to recover. It's very, very simple, very simple. So I thought that was really interesting. It's like, well, why not an annuity? If you're getting, you're preserving a quarter of your assets, you take less draw downs over time. Speaker 2 00:17:07 You are far more comfortable with the day-to-day. You don't have to watch the market day in, day out because you protected yourself. And the 20 year result was you had actually more money. I thought that was pretty impressive. So you can't tell me that annuities, aren't exciting if you can do things like that. So why wouldn't you use one? If the results are the same over time, that was part of it. And so you can see in the newsletter, that's the bottom. I have not finished it all, but again, it goes to differing philosophies and you might find a financial professional. I've met CFPs that do not handle retirement planning, investment advisors that do not work with asset distribution. That is my specialty retirement planning, asset distribution legacy. And I've tried to do it in a way that I'm not just pounding the drum for annuities. Speaker 2 00:17:55 I do it in a way that intertwines with all the other facets of a financial portfolio, which I think is more valuable. Hopefully you guys, uh, may agree with some of that. That's kind of the point of all this. So I'm not trying to convince anyone what to do. I've told several people in last few weeks, don't ever let anyone tell you what to do with your money. Not me, not anyone else. If you want to make a move, do it for the right reasons and make the move. Do not let someone talk you out of it because they have their best interests in mind again. So I try to be pretty laid back, take an easy approach to it and make sure everyone doesn't feel pressure, but gets the reasoning that they need to make viable decisions over time. So yes, annuities are exciting. Speaker 2 00:18:38 If you want to talk about any of these things, if you want to look for more stuff, go ahead and comment below the podcast or the newsletter. You can get ahold of me at 804, 3 8 5 1 2 1, or respond to the email that this podcast came out on. You can do that or go to the annuity straight talk page, any page top, right? Schedule a call. Pick your time zone, pick your time, write your notes. What do you want to talk about? And then I will give you a call. So anyway, it's easy to do. I'm here. I'm available. I'm in Montana. Come see me this summer. If you want to, I'm excited about it. This is not going to be the last invite I extend because I do get a lot of people that end up coming through. And so we'll go a Peck. If I'm in a good mood, I'll even grill you a burger from a prime beef that my dad's got. So I don't know. It might be special. It's going to be special timing, special people, but anyone who wants to come say hi, you're welcome. So anyway, Brian Anderson for annuity straight talk episode 34, annuities are exciting. Thank you so much for joining me. I'm outta here and I'll see you next week. Thank you. Bye Speaker 1 00:19:50 You've been listening to the proceeding. The views expressed by guests do not necessarily reflect the insurance company.