Client that calls repeatedly

[LostDollar]

"So when you guys decide to fire a client, do you tell them, or do you just stop communicating altogether, Not telling them as well as not taking any emails or calls?"
Your annuity has not been issued?
If so you are not a client.

That was not the thrust of the question(s) I was asking. However, I wonder about that.

It has been a long time since business law class, but it seems like there was stuff going by there about oral contracts and behaviors of two parties in a business relationship.

In an ongoing long communication process, 5-6 months ago, agent says something like I would like to find a way to do business with you.

4-6 weeks ago, Agent says I will be your Agent if you make a purchase of $xK. I say ok.

We then have some oral conversation about amounts and the amount I do drops slightly.

Agent obtains a non-resident KS license specifically to do business with me. This is followed by steps creating an in-process application with a specific carrier for a specific product.

There have been 3 or 4 re-submissions of the application, 1 to correct a gross professional error on the part of the agent and the others to correct personal information in the app that I have to take application signing responsibility for.

1 more application modification is needed. I submitted the information for that a week ago last Friday. I have had no response for 6 business days, which included 4 days where I sent texts to his business cell phone and 1 where I also emailed his business email.

To me, from a non-agent, but reasonable person, view point, all those events suggests that both parties viewed this as an agent client relationship for the last 4-6 weeks and the agent has chosen to end that relationship without notifying the client he is doing so.

 

[LostDollar]

Doesn't sound like an app was ever submitted, which in that case isn't the agent's only duty to be kind and informative when actually talking to a potential client?

I know that once an app is signed, your level of obligation rises significantly, but with an unsigned app, wouldn't the agent be free to halt communication regardless of method?

The question I have been trying to ask, to get agent opinion on, comes from a different perspective.

The perspective of the person who is to sign the app.

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Known info:

Let's say I concede to you the point you make in your second paragraph above.

Let's say there is a product application in process. From the point of view of the customer, it needs one more correction.

Let's say the customer provided the info to the agent via the agent's business email address.

Let's say, on the same day, the customer made a phone call to the agent and during that call he was very rude to the agent.

Let's say the agent has not responded to the customer since, for a period of 6 business days.

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Guesses:

Let's say the customer assumes the agent became very angry after the phone call and decided to terminate any business relationship, without notifying the customer.
(And remember that I conceded to you above that I did not disagree he had the right to do that.)

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Question:

Let's say, because of the significant time the agent spent with the customer, and the effort and expenditure of funds the agent made to obtain an out-of-state license, the customer is concerned about the agent.

My question is: What ethical responsibility would professional insurance agents consider the customer (prospect, pre-client, client -- however you want to title the non-agent party to the prospective business transaction) has to the agent in that set of circumstances?

 

[Lloyds of Lubbock]

Let's say the customer assumes the agent became very angry after the phone call and decided to terminate any business relationship, without notifying the customer.
It is doubtful this would happen.
You would have well documented complaint against him.
This annuity are you paying out of pocket or rolling an existing annuity into it?

 

[Lloyds of Lubbock]

Maybe an apology and lets start over may move the needle.

 

[LostDollar]

Let's say the customer assumes the agent became very angry after the phone call and decided to terminate any business relationship, without notifying the customer.
It is doubtful this would happen.
You would have well documented complaint against him.
This annuity are you paying out of pocket or rolling an existing annuity into it?

You don't know how rude I was on the phone.

The purchase of a $20K lifetime rider annuity was to be made with the transfer of IRA funds from 2 credit unions.

 

[DHK]

Let's say the customer assumes the agent became very angry after the phone call and decided to terminate any business relationship, without notifying the customer.
It is doubtful this would happen.
You would have well documented complaint against him.

The complaint wouldn't be because of terminating the relationship. I, as an agent, have the right to work with whomever I choose.

The basis of a complaint would be the lack of communication of the status of the relationship. A good attorney would twist that into a betrayal of trust by the agent.

Agents are liable for their actions and recommendations. The refusal alone to work with someone isn't enough to warrant a complaint, or rather an investigation by an insurance company or a DOI.

Granted, this isn't legal or compliance advice, but that's my understanding.

 

[bill3173]

The question I have been trying to ask, to get agent opinion on, comes from a different perspective.

The perspective of the person who is to sign the app.

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My question is: What ethical responsibility would professional insurance agents consider the customer (prospect, pre-client, client -- however you want to title the non-agent party to the prospective business transaction) has to the agent in that set of circumstances?

It is admirable that you are concerned about the agent. It does seem that he spent a good bit of time with you. However, at this point, based on what you've shared here, with a clear conscience, you can find another agent. It sounds like he may have already moved on, but he should have informed you, especially after this length of time, which is way out of what I would find acceptable.

Most of the annuity clients that I have were anxious to get their $$ in an annuity for the higher interest rate, income, etc. I would never let an annuity case drag out for three months. Two weeks start to finish for an annuity is about Max for me. If a client was uncertain about what we were doing, after I felt their questions were answered to our mutual satisfaction, then I would let the client know that it was not in their best interest to proceed, and wish them well.

 

[LostDollar]

Maybe an apology and lets start over may move the needle.

I don't think that will make much difference.

1) The application error he made was egregious, and although he fixed it he never apologized for it. I was very angry and thought about that for several days, finally deciding it was to my benefit to ignore it, for this application, and go forward.

However, I was going to need to discuss both, that and him citing non-guaranteed illustration benefits as guaranteed, prior to making any further purchases with him. I did not, do not, anticipate that discussion would go well.

2) At least based on comparison information I have from December, the next purchase discussion would need to be about NAC or MNL. In emails to me, he has expressed very strong dislike of both NAC and MNL, so I don't expect that discussion to go well either. I have been unsure if I could ameliorate problems there a bit by increasing my funding limit having him look at Forethought as an option. But that is not going to happen unless we have the discussion in 1) above.

3) Reading (and attempting to understand) 100 pages of sales literature, illustration, and application was quite difficult for me. Since this purchase involves something that will affect my family's finances for the next 30-40 years, I decided I needed to make a diligent effort to do that. That had me being a significant contributor to delays in getting to an application stage. However, as a single agent coping with more profitable clients, personal health issues and family issues, his delays in getting back to me have sometimes been absurd.

A delay of over 1 week to make these two application changes is a case in point. He is either quite angry, back to juggling stuff, or still wants info he hasn't told me about.

No matter how nice I think he is or how deep and broad I think his knowledge of annuities is,
I AM OUT OF TIME TO MAKE MY ANNUITY PURCHASES.

This process has shown me that I probably need an agency that has more than 1 person that can allow me the time I need to understand very complex insurance documents, but is then promptly available to move to the next step when I am ready to do so.

The agent ignoring communication attempts to his business phone and email for over a week are quite suggestive this is not going to be the case for this agency, even if I were to be able to smooth things over about the phone call.

That puts me back to my core question I expressed to Bill above.

 

[LostDollar]

The complaint wouldn't be because of terminating the relationship. I, as an agent, have the right to work with whomever I choose.

The basis of a complaint would be the lack of communication of the status of the relationship. A good attorney would twist that into a betrayal of trust by the agent.

Agents are liable for their actions and recommendations. The refusal alone to work with someone isn't enough to warrant a complaint, or rather an investigation by an insurance company or a DOI.

Granted, this isn't legal or compliance advice, but that's my understanding.

First, let me say I am not, and have not been, looking for grounds to make a complaint about this agent.

I like him, I appreciate him trying to help me, I appreciate his knowledge about the annuity industry and I regret the loss of access to him and another agent which this situation will probably create.

In addition after gaining some understanding of agent viewpoints with my reading here, I can have more appreciation of the level of effort he expended for me. I suspect he could have sold 1 or 2 $100K or $200K annuities to other people in the amount of time he has expended with me over a $25K annuity!

If I were, there are two issues, which I consider far more significant than the communication issue.

1) This is He Said, He Said, but I think I told him the main reason, probably the only reason, for this purchase was to provide income for my wife after my death. When we got to the beneficiary section of the application interview, he asked me who I wanted in there.

I can't recall the exact conversation, but I asked hesitantly about my wife and in some way or another he said that wasn't necessary and took info for my kids, so they were listed as primary beneficiaries for the annuity.

When I got the application back, it was 60 overwhelming pages of reading, so the first thing I did was just scroll through it, looking at places with blue text indicating my input and what I had to sign for as correct.

THERE WAS NO MENTION OF MY WIFE'S NAME, ANYWHERE IN THAT CONTRACT.

I was absolutely livid. I was ready to send him an email right then saying we were totally and completely done. Instead, I managed to calm down enough to send him an email saying my wife was not in the document. He emailed my back saying she had to be in there somewhere, he'd look into it.

The next day he sent another application with her listed as primary beneficiary and kids listed as secondary beneficiaries, JUST CITING BACK TO ME, AS FACT, THE SUGGESTION THAT I HAD MADE TO HIM IN THE EMAIL, THAT I THOUGHT SHE NEEDED TO BE LISTED AS PRIMARY BENEFICIARY. He never gave me an apology, saying something like, hey LD, I missed that, thanks for catching it. He just corrected the problem.

I finally decided it was to my advantage to just continue with this almost done situation, rather than completely starting over.

That would be my number 1 complaint, but I don't think I actually have enough written info to document it. However it turned into a significant example of why Rousemark asks people if they have read documents, BEFORE they sign and the appropriateness of Somarco's trust but verify statements.

2) Athene has an income rider option called something like indexed earnings. I don't remember if this was written or verbal communication, but he strongly suggested that I should plan to use that option because it had the ability to provide higher income at the far end of the annuity income period.

He must have been in a big hurry when he read the data for that recommendation, because when I finally figured out what he was talking about and found the supporting info in the illustration, it was on a non-guaranteed page rather than the guaranteed page. To add insult to injury, one of the years Athene used in their repeating back testing cycle to create the non-guaranteed presentation had a 40% return, and that was present 2-3 times in the data.

No way was that a valid recommendation. Again I don't know that I have total written records that would support that.

And again, I am not wanting to make any complaints.

I'd just like him to send me the corrected application so I can figure out how to sign it and have him get it sent in so Athene can start their "really old fart suitability evaluation", and then I can have an annuity and he can have a commission.

Not looking like that is going to happen.

 

[LostDollar]

It is admirable that you are concerned about the agent. It does seem that he spent a good bit of time with you. However, at this point, based on what you've shared here, with a clear conscience, you can find another agent. It sounds like he may have already moved on, but he should have informed you, especially after this length of time, which is way out of what I would find acceptable.

Most of the annuity clients that I have were anxious to get their $$ in an annuity for the higher interest rate, income, etc. I would never let an annuity case drag out for three months. Two weeks start to finish for an annuity is about Max for me. If a client was uncertain about what we were doing, after I felt their questions were answered to our mutual satisfaction, then I would let the client know that it was not in their best interest to proceed, and wish them well.

Thanks for the comments. I appreciate your insight.

I can't seem to see this in an email, so maybe he told me verbally, I thought he has told me the KS non=resident fee was $89.

I don't understand PayPal very well, I just use it to make eBay payments.

In addition to the waiting I've talked about, I went to PayPal, put in his business email and put in a round amount of $100 marked licensing fees. It looked like that payment was processed, if it was, I have also reimbursed him for that license fee he spent.

I decided that was fair, and if he wanted any profit he could get me the application.