Nicolacrayola
Expert
- 40
I have a couple in Tennessee that I was referred to that had rolled their qualified retirement money into 2 fixed indexed annuities of approximately $260,000 each about two years ago with an additional $25,000 going to a new contract a few months ago. Nothing against FIA’s-but not only were these clients the last people that would ever be appropriate for, the agent completely misrepresented how these products work to the extent that the clients believed that their money was entirely liquid and would increase at least 10% annually, but they also had no idea that they would be required to wait 10 years to trigger income as they were planning to retire within two years I made it very clear to him. He also completely fabricated the entire suitability section for both of the two applications I have been able to get my hands on thus far (there are actually four, because the smaller annuity was going to go somewhere else originally and for some reason, the guy changed his mind. Anyways, not only did the numbers that he put down on both suitability forms where zero resemblance to the actual situation, they did not even bear any resemblance to each other, which makes it very clear that he was just saying whatever he thought he should to get them approved. We have already attempted to get the clients released penalty free under free look provision, as they literally never in two years, receive ANY of the three contracts despite begging the agent repeatedly. We were denied initially, as we were told that policy receipts were not required in Tennessee, and one company informed us that they had a digital acknowledgment of policy receipt on file, but funny enough refused to answer me when I repeatedly asked whether the IP address indicated that it had been done by the client, or by the agent. We are not trying to be vicious-but this client was severely wronged and if they will not allow him to leave penalty free based on free look provision we really have no option but to expose the astronomical level of fraud. I have never discovered anywhere near this level of fraud myself before and wanted to see if anybody had any advice on how to get my clients the best possible outcome in terms of getting at the very least all of the original money back, but hopefully a settlement in addition to that, and doing so in the quickest and least stressful way for them. Please note that I myself am willing to do any amount of work necessary, but I do not want to stress them more than necessary. I am questioning a bit whether it would be advisable to go straight to the insurance commissioner as it may be headed there anyways, but it seems that it would be a much more drawn out process that way, and I would certainly think that with this level of evidence, the carriers would back down to avoid being named as codefendants.
Any advice anyone? The actual owner of the IRAs was 61 at the time the initial annuities were issued-i definitely plan to investigate whether there’s anyway to still have this considered elder abuse as I believe it would have been if she was four or five months older. Again I’m not trying to disastrous but these clients basically became my family and I just want to make things right for them and give them the best outcome possible.
Any advice anyone? The actual owner of the IRAs was 61 at the time the initial annuities were issued-i definitely plan to investigate whether there’s anyway to still have this considered elder abuse as I believe it would have been if she was four or five months older. Again I’m not trying to disastrous but these clients basically became my family and I just want to make things right for them and give them the best outcome possible.
