Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:00 Hello and welcome everyone to the Annuity Straight Talk podcast, episode number 93. My name is Brian Anderson, your host, founder and creator of Annuity Straight talk.com. Find answers to all of your retirement questions. We just did the full-blown retirement plan. I'm not a C F P, but I can help you figure everything else out. I don't believe in, uh, chasing initials, but we're not talking about that. Again, we already did it last week. Uh, here I'm gonna talk to you about a recent experience I had with a company that gave me the utmost confidence in them. And so I'm gonna share my story about why I think Midland National is one of the best companies you could possibly do business with. And a part of this is I'm making more of a stand to say, this is what I recommend. And a lot of you guys might notice that in this podcast.
Speaker 0 00:00:46 I pick apart bad ideas and people raed on me for that in the past. And what we're doing now is, you know, so I, I changed and I started doing, uh, you know, here's the wrong thing to do. Now this is what I would do, uh, what my recommendation is. So this is like, I'm gonna be more upfront and be more positive toward the things that I recommend chasing and following and looking for. And this company has every bit of it. So, um, this is me standing up saying, Midland National is probably one of the best choices you can make. Even if you gotta give a little bit up in yield or income, uh, it's worth doing business with good people. So now I don't, uh, I probably said this before, uh, not sure if anybody remembers it. I typically shy away from industry conventions. Last time I went to one, it was in 2017. It was from a big brokerage company.
Speaker 0 00:01:46 Um, I, and I just don't really feel like I have a lot in common with, I, I'm just gonna try to be as nice as possible. I don't have a whole lot of respect for the average person in this business. And I've said it's like, well, if I'm gonna go on vacation, the last thing I want to go to do is spend a bunch of time with insurance agents, right? So I've kind of like bucked the trend in this business. I'm not all about sales, I'm about education. I want people to buy. I don't wanna sell all that stuff. Um, obviously I make a living selling these products, but, um, I just haven't really hit the ground running with a lot of these, uh, people I went to. So in 2017, I think I spent four or five days. I can honestly tell you in that conference, I got nothing out of it.
Speaker 0 00:02:33 Um, there was nothing really all that interesting. Sure, there were some free dinners and all this stuff, but it was a stuffy crowd. They were either arrogant or they were just morons. And I just didn't feel like I, I got along, I I got along with any of 'em. So I just stay away from it in large part. So this is not to say that everyone in the business, and that's what I'm gonna talk to you about, everyone in the business is not bad. There are no bad annuities. There's just bad, bad situations. Some guys just don't. I like to tell you when I see a bad plan or a bad idea, we give the guy the benefit of the doubt and say he is probably a nice guy and he's probably trying to do his best. He's just really not that smart. And that's true for a lot of people. Okay? So I didn't want to go to this thing at Midland National because I thought, okay, it's just another one of those things. But I know a couple of the internal guys and I thought, all right, well I got invited. Let me give this a shot. So I went to South Carolina and there were a couple of advisors that I had met when I went to, I went to their home office last year. I met a couple guys that were also gonna be there. So I was a little warmer to the idea.
Speaker 0 00:03:40 And the biggest thing that I noticed right off the bat is that everybody, if you think about my career path, I started using Midland National say about five years ago, maybe six. I'd seen their products out there. One thing I like about them the most is it is an agent direct model. I've talked about this when, how commissions affect annuity sales and all that stuff. I brought it up. Most companies go through insurance marketing organizations. That's a third party that's set up for sales and distribution of insurance products. Um, Midland is an agent direct. So I go straight to the company. You know what happens is you get better rates. I make a little more money, you make a little bit more money. Um, they're competitive with income annuities, multi-year, guaranteed fixed annuities, index annuities for accumulation, all sorts of stuff. They're always in the conversation. Now, if we got really high income or somebody beats 'em by a lot, I still go out to a lot of other companies. But this is where I'm gonna prefer to do business here, if at all possible. If it's in the ballpark, I take it. Okay. So I came to Midland National after 15 years or so in the business, and I found a company that was more suited to me. And because they don't have that large distribution network that all the other companies have, there's not a lot of advisors that know about 'em. I always think it's funny, some people say, oh, Midland, now you don't wanna do business with those guys. Oh, you wanna go to Athene? Okay, fine, you can go to Athene. Sure. But Midland National's a better company.
Speaker 0 00:05:20 Everybody I met there from advisor standpoint was the same as me. We were all like-minded. We did the same type of business, we worked the same way. We all came around for the same reasons. And so it takes a higher level advisor to even find that company to begin with, because they're not as well distri distributed as ev as the other companies.
Speaker 0 00:05:43 So I noticed that right off the bat. I was like, man, this is a great group of people. I got a lot of really good ideas. I had some conversations. I got a lot of new friends. I met people within the company, um, just a fantastic organization. And I thought, these are the kind of people I wanna spend time around. Smart, successful, ethical people. And my goodness, they were everywhere. And it's something that I haven't seen in this business a whole lot of. And I know great people that do it, and I know there are a lot of great people out there, but there's a lot of scumbags, I don't know. And they really weren't a part of this organization. And all the other advisors that came there just like me. And that's a, that's what I, I tell, I tell everybody, you want me to be successful?
Speaker 0 00:06:31 You don't wanna take financial advice from a guy that doesn't make any money. So if you get offended by me making money, then your priorities are in the wrong spot. So these guys make, they make good money. W the conversation was never about that. We talked about what they do for clients, and the stories I got from 'em were just amazing, right? So the best thing, I kicked it off the first night, um, with the chief investment officer of the company, uh, very nice, nice guy. Uh, really intelligent, you know, 20 some years in the business, managing assets for, so he's the guy that's in charge of putting your money to work when you put your money at Midland National, right? He's not a sales guy, he's a, a technical quant type person, an analyst, but he's in charge of directing investments for the entire company.
Speaker 0 00:07:30 So he's had years of doing this for other companies. And again, he chose to come to this company when he probably could have got a job about anywhere else. That means a lot. So it's funny, like we're sitting out in this courtyard of this nice resort and I bent his ear about something as everybody's lining up to go through the buffet line and all that stuff. And it was kind of funny. Our conversation took us long enough that we were the last people to go through the food line. What do you know, there's only one table left. I had to sit there and have dinner with him. And another guy from Chicago that I met, uh, I'll say his name, Mike Russo. What a, what a great guy. Um, would love to spend more time with him, but a lot of respect for those people. Uh, if you ever run into Mike Russo in Chicago, uh, great dude, I'm sure he is gonna take really good care of you, right?
Speaker 0 00:08:17 Um, and the other, other great friends of mine, we got Mike Lang, he's also in Chicago. Awesome dude. I'm gonna have him on the podcast. Kevin Fifield, uh, he's in Michigan. Uh, wonderful, wonderful people, uh, want to get 'em all out and introduce everybody to those guys cuz they're pretty cool. But I got to, I sit with a CIO o during dinner and man the conversation, which is amazing. And so what I learned about the advantages of Midland, why they do it, and he sat there, they've got 94% of their portfolio is in investment grade assets in incredibly, incredibly solid position. So 6% is an alternative. Something like, you know, real estate, like commercial real estate, uh, or stock market, some of the things like that. Industry average is about 15 between 10, 10, 12, 15%, some in there. So incredibly conservative. They're an ESOP company. Employee stock owned.
Speaker 0 00:09:16 The guy who started Midland years ago left the company in trust for the employees. So they have high employee retention. Employees know everything about it. They have a vested interest in success of the company. They don't pay taxes. They have more cash to deal with, they pay better rates, better customer service, better employees, all there. It's a great company. And so I'm gonna sing the praise praises of that company right now and tell you that's where I prefer to do business. Um, agent direct know, like the IML model slows me down. Sometimes I put in an application of another carrier, I'm gonna do it cuz it, you know, you guys deserve the best deal you can get. And by all means, chase, chase rates or do whatever you want to do. But I'm gonna tell you, you wanna take just a little bit less and go to a better company.
Speaker 0 00:10:10 I think that's, uh, a smart move cuz you're gonna be taken care of, um, at Midland National. So, um, high level advisors, excellent people working in the company, very strong financial position. We're in it for safety. That's a really, really, really good company. So I wanted to share that with you guys today. It's a quick one cause didn't wanna take too much time. It doesn't take, uh, a lot to explain, but like I said, income accumulation, any type of product, they're always in the mix. It deserves a re it deserves recognition and deserves a look. And you'll probably see it if you come talk to me. So Midland National all the way, great company, and uh, I'd be happy to show you what they got for you. So, uh, you guys gimme a call anytime. Go ahead. Like, subscribe or comment on any of your favorite podcast platforms or on YouTube.
Speaker 0 00:10:58 Check out the video, see me wearing one of my new Hawaiian shirts if you want. Um, that's on YouTube. You can schedule a call at the top right corner of any page on annuity straight talk.com says schedule a call, click the button, write some notes, what you wanna talk about, phone number, email, and set the time. Okay, uh, piece of cake to get me. That guarantees a spot on my, uh, on my calendar. If you wanna call me at (800) 438-5121, you can do that as well. But it does not guarantee your spot. It just means that, uh, I might have to call you back and usually it doesn't take too long. But I am, uh, fairly busy and I'd like to have a, a life balance as well. So anyway, thank you again for joining me for episode 93. Quick one. Uh, thanks, uh, I'll see you next week. I'm gonna talk to you about grizzly bears. Get ready. That's gonna be a good one. Okay? Have a great day guys. Bye.
