Yeah, and that guy/gal gets overridden because SALES!But don't you think someone would have come along and said, "Hey, your GI is way too low compared to the average? And the market your going to get isn't the one you want."
I can't speak to FE but I can talk about annuities. These are multi-billion dollar companies.
In the late 90s/early 2000s, several companies had riders that as long as there was money in the contract, the rider was active. The benefit was dollar for dollar (not pro rata as they are now) so savvy agents/advisors stripped every dollar out of those contracts and left just enough to keep the lifetime income in force. Clients won, companies lost.
10 years later, they still didn't learn their lesson. They had riders that were so good (and actuarily unsound) that several other companies (like AXA and TransAmerica) were forced to literally buy people out of their contracts for more than their policies were worth to mitigate potential losses.
So while there may be a few people sounding the alarm, when things are going well at these carriers, no one listens. After all, if you hit your bonus several years in a row, no one cares in the end. Everyone gets fired and just goes to a new company.