A case against contractual retirement annuities
INSURANCE contracts are necessary for the protection of both the insurer and the policyholder. But there is another type of financial contract that is essentially unnecessary: one that forces you to save.
Contractual investment products – endowment policies and contractual retirement annuities (RAs) – force you to contribute an agreed amount over a fixed term, often with a built-in annual escalation, ostensibly to offset inflation.
Worse, their commission structure presents a glaring conflict of interests: the broker receives the bulk of the commission due over the term of the policy in one large, upfront
