MYTHBUSTERS

BUSTER: There are quite a few types of annuities. One type is known as a Growth Annuity. These are made to simply grow your money over a certain period of time, eg., 5-15 years, based on the stock index its tied to. Once the period is over, all the money can be withdrawn or rolled over to another retirement vehicle.

BUSTER: Nope. Many of our annuities have no fees whatsoever. Some have certain rider charges based on exercising certain options. But these options are often not necessary. All the talk about annuities having high fees are regarding Variable Annuities, which are subject to market losses and are not in our repertoire.

BUSTER: False. Our annuities can be shown to perform really well, allowing one to potentially double their money over about 10 years and be on par with the performance of market indices over a given period. All this is done on a tax-deferred basis, allowing for significantly more compounding over that period.

BUSTER: All of our growth annuities allow one to withdraw 10% of the account value every year starting with the second year without penalty. If one anticipates possibly needing more than that earlier, one can simply choose a shorter term annuity, such as 5-7 years.

BUSTER: Would you rather pay a smaller amount of tax upfront, or pay a much higher tax on the many years worth of growth? IUL's have tax-free distributions via policy loans, which don't have to be repaid, ever.

BUSTER: IUL fees are not tied to the growth of the account. Therefore, you are not paying a percentage of the growth every year, which can add up big time over many years. Fact, IUL fees are significantly lower than other retirement vehicles over the life of the policy, and some offer policy credits after 10 years.

BUSTER: While the IRS has certain guidelines for life insurance limits, its only relative to the death benefit amount, which can't be too low. So its possible to fund an IUL with high amounts, even a million per year. Additionally, if the purpose of the IUL is to transfer wealth, these guidelines need not be satisfied.

BUSTER: While some index options have caps, some don't. In fact, some indices can be seen to outperform the market in a given period when factoring in the fact that the IUL doesn't go negative in a bad year. All that is in addition the extra compounding received due to not going negative.