Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Buyer Of Structured Annuity Settlement - How To Find the Structured Annuity Buyer That Suits You

Annuities are important and valuable policies for many senior citizens in the USA. Sometimes, however, any one of us may have need to plan for the future differently. Our plans may change, we may require cash fast and decide to sell the annuity or part of it for a large lump of cash.

Annuities are usually paid annually in small amounts and for some people, it may not be enough to support their lifestyle. Many people need cash today to invest in their own business even after retirement, some may have loans to pay off, or many people with good financial standing would rather have a large sum in advance, than having small payments deposited annually. Selling your annuity may give you more leverage for your "future" money, today.

It must be noted that selling your annuity, may have tax implications so it would be wise to have some idea of your situation.

There are a few reputable financial companies on the market that will work with you and based on your situation, provide you with the plan that may suit you best.

Even if you have already decided to sell your annuity, it would be extremely wise to shop around. This point cannot be stressed enough, as many people accept the first offer they come across and think this is the best they can do. Because of the years involved, even a small percentage variation in time periods can mean difference in hundreds of dollars in, or out of your pocket.

Use the internet, obtain as many quotes as you can, and make informed decisions. In addition you will gain more knowledge in the process.

If you are serious about your financial future than be sure to read "Buyers of Annuity Structured Settlement" article at http://lump-sum-structured-settlement.savehog.com Where you will find variety of valuable information including links to free instant online quote from annuity buyers, as well as host of online resources and calculators.

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LeadZILLA: Best Annuity Lead Program?

LeadZILLA, a direct mail annuity lead program, won the Readers? Choice Award in a survey of independent annuity producers polled by Senior Market Advisor Magazine. But after thoroughly testing the system myself, do I see LeadZILLA as king of the jungle or a big bag of gas? I have invested thousands of my own dollars into LeadZILLA to generate leads for my own general agents to use, and I?ve learned a few lessons along the way.

The numbers speak for themselves. My first mail drop was on September 23, 2005 and, as of this writing, I have used LeadZILLA continuously for the past fourteen months. I have mailed out 44,800 pieces in 224 drops and received 1,295 direct response cards back in the mail. This is a response rate of 2.89% and an average of 5.77 lead cards for each 200 piece drop.

The lead system's proprietor boasts an average of 6 lead cards returned for every 200-piece drop. My average of 5.77 cards is close enough that I?m not going to snivel over the .23% difference. As we in the insurance industry know, pools of statistics paint with a broad brush. I?ve seen return rates ranging from zero cards back to 20 back, each from 200 pieces mailed out. Individual return rates are one of those mysteries of life, but I always advise my agents to select zip codes on the outskirts of town and away from affluent neighborhoods.

The good news is that LeadZILLA is part of a Marketing Allowance Program (MAP), which makes it free with production. For every (roughly) $40,000 in annuity premium issued by one of four carriers ? Allianz, American Equity, Sun Life Financial, and ING ? the agent receives a 200-piece mail drop. On average, each piece of business leads to six additional prospects, which in turn leads to more business and more prospects in a self-perpetuating cycle.

But this cycle is quickly broken with this or any lead system when the agent tries to take the lazy way out. Do not (I repeat, DO NOT!) destroy a perfectly good direct response lead by picking up the telephone and becoming a cold-call telemarketer. You?ll be lucky to set an appointment with one in six prospects, and you?ll quickly join the ranks of the 90% of insurance agents who fail. Instead, route out your cards, get in your car and spend an afternoon using the Drop-By System.

Here are the steps to remember with the Drop-By System. Park your car directly in front of your prospect?s home or in their driveway. Leave the engine running and the door open. Get out of your car, turn and wave at the front window as if someone saw you drive up. (In case someone did see you drive up, they?re busted!) Knock on the door and stand sideways a few feet away. When your prospect comes to the door, glance at your watch and say, ?Hello, may I speak with Mr./Mrs. (Name on card)? I?m (Your name) and I only have a minute, but I was passing by your street and thought I might stop by to set up an appointment to go over this information you requested (show them the lead card they filled out and signed). Is Thursday morning at 10 good, or is Friday morning at 9 better?? Let the conversation go where it will. Some of my biggest annuity sales started out discussing Mr. and Mrs. Prospect?s cat.

They can?t very well hang up on you. They can, however, see that you are a living human being with ?evidence? in your hand, a smile on your face, and a simple duty to fulfill their request for information. You?ll set appointments with four out of six prospects. What?s more, when you return for the appointment you won?t be a stranger. Odds are you?ll leave with deal in hand.

I have additional information on LeadZILLA and other annuity lead and insurance lead programs. Feel free to contact me. Direct mail lead generation is one of the best methods I have used in my decades of direct sales. Popular vote says LeadZILLA is the best. Who would argue with the king of the jungle?

http://www.Free-Insurance-Leads.com Gary Le Mon is a wholesale distributor of fixed indexed annuities for Allianz, American Equity, Sun Life Financial, and ING. Author and developer of the Safe Money Seminar, a financial planning seminar for Seniors, Gary serves as guest speaker on behalf of agents and agencies nationwide. He is coach, mentor and motivator to over 700 general agents in his insurance marketing organization, InsuranStar Marketing. See also Insurance-Lead-Programs.com.

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Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Fixed Annuity Choices - Significant Considerations

When it comes to fixed annuity choices you have two basic types to select from - the immediate annuity and the deferred annuity.

If you opt to enroll in a plan that offers an immediate annuity, you will receive a check from the company anytime within twelve months of signing on the dotted line. An immediate annuity also offers you the choice of receiving the check every year for a specific pre-determined number of years or whether you just want to keep receiving the checks every year for the duration of your entire lifetime. In the latter case the insurance company will figure out how much each payment will be based on how much insurance you bought in the first place and the length of your projected life expectancy.

A deferred annuity is a little more complicated. It is a two-step type plan. During the first phase of the plan, known as the accumulation plan, your money is invested and allowed to grow in bulk. Taxes on this investment are deferred until you should choose to withdraw the money out, either as a series of payments or as one lump sum. The second phase of the plan is this payout phase

When it comes to fixed annuity choices many people opt for the deferred annuity because it offers more control over your money -especially over the dates when you can withdraw the money. The benefit of this is that you decide when to pay the taxes on income incurred from your fixed annuity.

When assessing your fixed annuity choices it is probably a good idea to assess whether or not you are going to need to withdraw the money before retirement. If you think you will need money before you retire then the deferred annuity is a better choice as it offers more flexibility in both what amounts you can take out and when you can withdraw the funds.

Tiffany Walker has finally revealed her annuity secrets online. Read the latest by clicking here: Fixed Annuity Choices.

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Friday, January 11, 2008

Structured Settlement Annuity: The Real Deal

Structured Settlement Annuities have been shown to provide a valuable, safe and guaranteed source of lifetime income to parties in personal injury or other cases. Today we look at situations where these special annuities would be helpful.

Personal injury.
This is obvious to most, but let's take a closer look at situations that might warrant such settlements.

Temporary or permanent disability.
A structured settlement can help here by making sure the cost, if any, of rehabilitation is covered.

Guardianship of minors or persons with diminished mental capacity.
We've seen before how dangerous mismanagement of a lump sum settlement for a child can seriously impact the future care of the child. Guaranteeing that care for the injured child will be covered will add greatly to the overall quality of life for the caretaker and the child.

Wrongful death, particularly when the surviving spouse and / or children need steady income.
When tragedy strikes the main money earner of a household loss to a family is felt in many ways. In some cases this can cause financial ruin to a family. A structured settlement can help replace the monthly income lost and provide a family piece of mind that the rent, bills etc will be paid for.

Severe injuries, especially those that result in shortened life expectancy.
Once again, protecting the financial future of the family or caregivers to make sure that specialized care is covered and monthly expenses are paid.

Cases where future needs can be determined today.
This is a bit more risky as it can be difficult to predict expenses in the future. However, certain costs may be fixed or are more easily anticipated like mortgages, tuition, and monthly bills.

If someone finds themselves in any of these situations, it's important to take these factors into consideration:

1-Significant, ongoing medical expenses
2-Rehabilitation or permanent care facility expenses
3-College tuition, retirement income, the down payment on a home or a mortgage payment
4-Replacement of monthly income, annual income or supplemental income

Though some of these may seem too far in the future to think about, ignoring these will cause more hardship than necessary.

Michael DeGeorge has done extensive research on structured settlements and shares a wealth of information on his website http://structsettle.gitgoingnow.com. Download your free Structured Settlement Annuity information today from http://structsettle.gitgoingnow.com.

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Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Compare An Annuity Rate - Foolproof Method

You should never buy insurance without first taking the trouble to compare annuity rate offers from several different companies. This will definitely prevent you from running the risk of accidentally buying high-cost insurance.

Millions of people needlessly pay unnecessarily high interest rates because they were too lazy to try to compare annuity rate offers. For instance many people don't realize that a variable annuity actually has higher fees and sometimes-higher interest rates then a fixed rate annuity.

Just to remind you of the differences between types of annuities, a fixed annuity pays you a guaranteed rate of interest and a variable annuity helps you invest in a portfolio of mutual fund type accounts. There is also a third type of annuity called an equity-indexed annuity. It is like a mating of the two types and offers a minimum rate of interest as well as the opportunity to invest your money in a portfolio as well. Equity indexed annuities are the hardest plans to compare simply because they are complex and marketed as being risk-free when in fact the opposite is often true!

Another unfortunate yet common consequence of neglecting to compare annuity rate offers is settling for the first deal that comes your way. Many people do this just to get the whole tedious job of comparing annuity rate offers over with. This could be a big mistake, especially if you don't read the fine print. For one thing you might end up paying really high fees should you decide to withdraw your money one day.

Another problem is that you are often stuck in the deal that you chose in the first place as there could be very high penalties for withdrawing your money early. This makes it almost impossible to get ahead financially even if you did have a better annuity rate offered from another company.

Tiffany Walker has finally revealed her annuity secrets online. Read the latest by clicking here: Buyer of structured annuity settlement.

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Sunday, November 25, 2007

The Terrible Truth about Insurance and Annuity Leads

You see the websites, you see the ads: exclusive, never before sold, prospects eager to buy, insurance and annuity leads. Some leads cost a few dollars - others are over one-hundred a pop.

I was curious, just how good are these insurance and annuity leads? I decided to find out.

Im not going to name specific insurance and annuity lead websites, but I will give you a summary of how it all shook out.

Insurance and Annuity Lead Website A:

Cost: Cheap

Results: Terrible. 10% of the leads my staff called got number no longer in service recordings. The rest: the people had no idea what we were talking about. They were not interested in annuities, insurance or investments, nor did they remember filling out a request for information form on the internet.

Sales: 0

Insurance and Annuity Lead Website B:

Cost: Average

Results: Terrible. Prospects didnt recall filling out request for information on anything related to annuities, insurance or financial planning. Most just hung-up.

Sales: 0

Insurance and Annuity Leads Website C:

Cost: Expensive

Results: About twenty percent remembered filling out a request for info. However, they had been called numerous times by different agents. Most were getting sick and tired of the calls. A few had begun working with other agents. Most hung-up angrily.

Sales: 0


I spent two-thousand dollars on this experiment. I did not find one-receptive buyer. I had thrown away my money, not to mention time spent by my phoning staff to contact these hot prospects.

What the heck was going on? How could these websites sell such garbage?

I poked around, wrote a few e-mails to industry experts, not surprisingly, nobody got back to me. Luckily, I did end up making contact with a marketing person who had previously worked for a big lead selling outfit. She gave me the juicy details of how the majority of these lead companies operate, whether it is insurance leads, long-term care leads, annuity leads, or MLM/Work-from-Home leads. They all employ the same methods.

Method 1: You send cute E-card to your mother wishing her a happy birthday. You fill out name, e-mail and click send. Your name and e-mail are captured. If the site is a lead harvester masquerading as an e-card site, you will now be e-mailed by people looking to sell you annuities, business opportunity offers, etc.

Method 2: Leads site buys huge database, often just regional phone book listings. They sell these leads, which are nothing more than names and numbers picked from the phonebook. Some of these people may even be on the Do Not Call list, which could land you in hot water.

Method 3: Harvesting leads from search engines. Often these leads are quality, but are expensive to capture, so the leads companies will sell the leads over and over. By the time you buy the lead, it could have been sold twenty times. Sometimes youre the first to buy and you will find some quality prospects, more often youre not.

Method 4: Internet robots crawl web sites hunting for e-mail addresses associated with insurance and annuity content. Somebody might be inquiring about annuities on a newsgroup or forum, next thing they know theyre getting offers from annuity companies. The Annuity Lead companies dont let you in on how theyve harvested the leads. Its called spam and you could get in serious trouble for contacting these people unsolicited.

My contact did say there are decent leads sites. She said to check their policy to see if they guarantee the leads. Keep in mind, just because they have a guarantee doesnt mean youll get your money back if the leads fail to produce results. But often sites with some kind of guarantee are sites that harvest only quality leads and only sell them once.

If youre still of the mind to try internet leads my advice is to try just a few. Dont buy into a huge program that requires a minimum monthly or a large upfront purchase. Experiment a little with a cross-section of sites. Who knows, you may find one thats legit thatll help you make some money.

Bill Broich is the founder of The Broich Approach, an annuity selling and marketing system based in Olympia, Washington. You can find more information about him and his system at: http://www.broichapproach.com

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