The Advantage of the Golden Age of Annuities | 7 Figure Annuity Sales Podcast | Ep. 130
This is a transcript of Episode 130 of the 7 Figure Annuity Sales Podcast (hosts Chad Owen and Caleb) discussing why the annuity industry is in a "golden age." They frame demand around Baby Boomers (born 1946–1964, roughly ages 56–74 at recording) while noting interest from younger cohorts (Gen X and some under-45 clients). They trace product evolution (indexed annuities ~1995; income riders ~2004; later blended indexes), argue that annuities' reputation has improved since about 2010–2012, and emphasize agent responsibility (read company literature, avoid misrepresentations). The episode mixes personal anecdotes (travel/Disney) with practical sales and ethical advice and a bullish outlook for annuity sales over the next decade.
Chapters
Hello everyone. Welcome to this week's podcast. I am Chad Owen, as you know. And I appreciate, honestly, you take the time to tune in YouTube channel, whatever it is, because we have it on YouTube too, don't we? Ah, yes, exactly. So if you're only doing podcasts, you're missing all of this and none of that. So if you don't know what I was pointing to, that means you need to go and watch it on YouTube.
Yeah, it's pretty fun when you get.
To see us, maybe. Okay, so Caleb, what are we talking about? Oh, wise little one?
Yes, we're gonna talk about the golden age.
What are we talking about?
Grogu, you've been watching the Mandalorian.
Oh my God.
We're not sponsored by Disney.
No, we're not. But hey, free passes would be nice.
Yeah, that would be cool.
I'm only asking for 10 years at a time. Yeah, 10 years for my entire family.
There you go.
Actually everybody in the office.
Okay.
And free airfare and meals at the resort.
Oh my gosh.
See, this is where it is, man. My mind. See, one of the things I talk about in our industry is what we get to do. And my kids, I think we've taken them to Disney five or six times and we've stayed at the actual resorts in Disney World. And I mean, who gets to do that? You know, I never take that for granted ever. It's. It was just different insurance companies, different marketing organizations. I mean, we went and think about the memories my kids have, especially. There's one insurance company, man, when they take you to Disney World, it was unbelievable. I mean, they had character breakfasts, they had. They'd close down a park for a night and we'd just go around to the different rides. Amazing, man. My kids went on one like 13 times, I went on two and I felt like throwing up, but they're just going and going and going. But we, we get to do this. And so I mentioned Disney World and then all of a sudden I start having all these flashbacks of, of just the times we've had together. And there's a lot of times people say, don't live in the past.
I could agree with that to a certain point, but it's remembering my past that not only helps me not do what I did wrong in the past, but also helps me live some really incredible memories and remember why I do what I do. Just watching my kids faces when we get to take trips, I've lost count, I mean, how many trips we've got to take. And it's not just all with insurance companies. It's just because I have the freedom and the flexibility to go and do this, and I don't care, man. I could have a billion dollars right now and no memories or memories and a lot less money. And I'll take memories over money all day long.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
That's amazing.
Anyway, I'd sidetrack. I just, once again, I just think about what we get to do in our industry, and if you. If you haven't got to experience that yet. This is my whole goal. Honestly, one of my favorite things is not just taking my family onto us, but it's hearing agents that never thought they could do that. They get to do that, and they share that with me. And I. It's just so rewarding.
I love it.
So what are we talking about?
Well, we're going to talk about the golden age of annuities. I was doing a little bit of digging this morning. Obviously, you know, when we talk about the golden age of annuities, we kind of lump that in with the baby boomer generation. Right. So baby boomers, 1946 to 1964. So that means that the youngest boomers are approximately 56. The oldest are around 74.
My wife didn't fall in generation because I probably would have said something stupid.
Oh, yeah, you would have got yourself in a lot of trouble with that one.
Hey, I'm here in the baby boomer generation. No, she's. She's a long ways away from that. Not really.
But anyway, hopefully she don't listen to these.
She does not listen to these. I do that. Unless you wrap me out, I might.
Make a recommendation that she checks this one out.
I love you, hon.
Yeah, but, you know, you look at the youngest being about 56, oldest being about 74. You talk about, you know, about 20% of the United States is the generation after the boomers. I don't remember.
I'm drawing a blank on that.
I don't remember.
But I remember doing a study on that, too, and they were talking about, like, half that generation is still absolutely in our demographics. Absolutely it is. So it's not just the golden age for the baby boomer generation. I honestly believe we have half the next generation. Generally, my cutoff is where you hit right around.
Man. If they're under the age of 45, I rarely meet with someone unless they just are really sharp. And when I say sharp, they just understand that they will want to retire someday. And there is such thing as delayed gratification. And you need to save that's what I mean by really sharp, that they understand that no, you can't take a loan of your 401k to buy a car and, and then spend the rest of your life hoping to pay that back. And you don't.
Yeah.
And so I think the golden age of annuities is not just the baby boomers. I think we're absolutely moving. I think it's generation X, I think, and absolutely it includes all of that.
Well, and you've still. I mean, you talk about half of the boomers are 65 or younger, approximately. So you've still got a large portion of that generation as well as about half of the next. And yeah, there's plenty of people that still need to hear about what we have to talk about. So when we talk about the boomers aging in the golden age of annuities, no, it is not phasing out. We are still right smack dab in the middle of this and need to treat it as that.
You know, in all reality, I mean, I'm 47 years old right now and I really believe that. I mean, even if I work for the next 20 years, which I'll never. There's no such thing as retirement. Anybody who knows me, I don't have retirement in my vocabulary now. I like working semi retired. What do I mean by that one? 2019, I was able to take off 16 weeks and travel the world with my wife. Unfortunately, 2020 wasn't the same, but I still was able to take six weeks off for 2020.
Right.
So it's like six weeks off. Find me someone who's worked for a company for how many years and them getting six weeks off. It's very unusual. I may well take my team on places together. Like we were going to the Big island this year and Hawaiian for those.
Of you big islands.
Big island of Hawaii. The Big island of Australia. Yeah, no, the Big island of Hawaii. And you know, we get to enjoy this. But I don't have retirement my vocabulary. But even if, let's just say 20 years from now I retire, so the retirement age of 67 I have, it's going to be the entire time.
Right.
Because I consider myself actually in my target demographic. 45 and above is kind of my target demographic. So we have many, many, many years and I still don't even think it's going to, it's going to go away after that because the older people get, the more they experience market volatility and the more they realize that these are time proven product and our products keep getting better. And better every year, which I find interesting. Stocks, bonds, mutual funds, commodities, they all have variable aspects to it. In my opinion. They have not improved. If not, they've actually gotten worse. This is why you have so many IPOs launch, and they fail miserably because they way overvalued them. And. And there's so many economists right now talk about how overvalued the stock market is. Our products keep getting better. You know, 1995, we come up with the indexed annuity. 2004, we come out with income riders, and then we come out with these blended indexes, but we still have the income riders supporting. I'm telling you, our products keep getting better. They do. Treasury rates have been challenging, but once again, that's not that. The alternative is not even close to what we can offer for guarantees.
Right.
Yeah, no, I know you're trying to get somewhere, so I keep throwing these Robin trails out.
They're good. This is. This is why we do it. And. And you're absolutely right. The products do continue to get better. And I love seeing that. I love coming in, you know, year after year, now that I've actually been doing it for a while, and. And seeing that, and go, wow, this is pretty neat. And be able to come to you and say, hey, have you seen this? And typically, it's, yeah, I've already seen that. Yada, yada, yada. And you have your thoughts on it, but.
Well, you know, the golden age of annuities also is coming from. We're no longer a bad word anymore.
Right.
You know, when I first got started in this business, you mentioned the word annuities. And I could even say, even up until 2010, 2012, or 2000. Yeah, 2010. 2012. Yeah. I mean, 2012 is when you really started seeing. There's a bunch of articles, 2009, 2010, that came out talking about how safe and secure annuity companies are and why it's good to protect your money. And then the stock market started going up again, so it kind of dropped off the face of the planet. And actually. And if you're part of our marketing organization, you know, you actually have access to the articles I use for clients that literally, these are people that don't promote our products, that do promote our products. And I have those articles available for handouts, But I love seeing that. Now you mentioned the word annuity, and you don't see near as many people cringe. They're like, oh, you know what? I need to get one of those. I have a friend that went in That I have a. I mean, it's non stop now where, where I hear people talk more positive about annuities than negatively. So that's another part where I say the golden age of annuities.
Absolutely. Finally kind of getting to this point where the black eye, so to speak, has been being removed from kind of our roles in the industry.
One is rightfully deserved.
Sure.
I mean the way representatives, variable annuities were presented and the high fees and even some of the indexed annuities. And to this day I still run into people that talk about indexed annuities that should be, you know, put up against the wall and hammer their toe because they just, they just are what they tell clients are. So that's not how that annuity works. And don't make those type of implications. You're going to make those type of gains. But we really are getting better as an industry and making sure. And that's why we hit so hard in our training. Right. Sell the worst case scenario and build up from there. Absolutely. You know, but, but yeah, absolutely. I'm excited, honestly about the next couple decades.
Yeah, well. And that actually segues really well into. As we talk about the boomers kind of starting to reach 65. You can talk about half of them being 65 or younger. About half of them being 65 and older. You've got another say, 10 years or so where they're really in that sweet demographic. What are you expecting over. And I know we're not fortune tellers here. We're not going to pretend to be able to predict, predict the future, but what do we expect to see, you know, over the next 10 years?
Well, I can definitely say what I've seen is now I'm actually having people that call me saying, hey, my dad has an annuity. I want to get into one of those. My grandparents had an annuity I want to get into that's a coworker retired and bought an annuity. How do I get those? Excuse me. If you've been in Texas, you know, we have something called cedar fever and real. It's happening. It is not corona, I promise you. It's cedar fever. It starts with the C. But cedar fever is real. You actually, I remember the first time I saw what cedar fever was and the wind was blowing in the hill country and you saw this yellow cloud and you're going, I'm breathing that. So maybe the masks might help this year I'm gonna have to change them every five minutes, but clogged up with the cedar pollen. But it's It's a matter of, once again, we're in such a ripe time for this where now we're getting advertisements from people who are in them. So that's why I don't think it's just down to, you know, 55. I think we could go down to 45 and even farther once we see more and more people get into these.
Well, and naturally you think about, you know, the way the market handles itself and kind of with competition and products, you know, trying to be competitive and insurance companies trying to come out with products that are competitive. And we see this refinement of the products and this improvement of the products. I wouldn't be surprised if we start seeing those products that are specifically designed for those people that are younger. And then you've got people that are, you know, like you're saying 40, 45 years old saying, hey, my dad's got one of these, my, you know, whatever, I want one. And people are reaching out. Now part of that is going to be agents doing their job well.
Oh, absolutely.
And that's been a. I mean, that's been part of what created the black eye in the first place was like you were talking about different products that weren't being represented properly or even just individual agents that weren't necessarily doing their own due diligence to actually do what was best for the client. And now we're starting to see this shift where agents are actually taking on that fiduciary responsibility with their clients and saying, you know what? I am going to do what is best for my client.
I'd like to believe that, but the reality is I still don't see it. You know, I see the people that were training do that, but I still see people representing products based off of what their marketer said or what the insurance company said and they didn't read what the actual brochures said. And I remember some conversations I've had with insurance companies where they were explaining a product and the person who was explaining it to me was not explaining how it was. How did I know that? Because I actually read the brochures that said this is how it actually works. I can think of one example as far as the annuities that used to have the income riders, and some of them still do that have the long term care benefit. What they never told the client is that once that cash value runs out, so does that long term care benefit.
Right?
So if you're bought, that annuity is 65 years old and you're now 85 years old and you need that long term care benefit, but there's no cash value in there. That long term care benefit isn't available.
Right.
But they would say, oh no, you know, it's, it's always available. If you, if you need it, it's one and a half or two times the amount. No, when the cash values gone, that benefits gone. But so many people have represented that as this is how it works in the reality that's not the case. So you have to read the products. So I still unfortunately have not seen the turning around. I would like to see with agents representing products the way they need to be.
Still too much hearsay. Still too much. Maybe commission chasing.
Absolutely. Well, laziness. I mean, it's, they don't want to study new products, they don't want to read the brochures. And I'm telling you, you have to, you have to read the illustrations. And that's the only way you get to know something is by actually reading it yourself, not just taking someone's word.
We always say read the company literature.
100%. Absolutely.
Don't just call them.
No, no, it's good. And I don't believe, once again, I mean, if you're not doing it and you're the person that's actually meeting with the client and why would you expect the person who's representing the product to necessarily read it?
Right.
You know, who has more responsibility? The one who's telling us or us speaking to the client? You. Absolutely. We're the ones that's actually meeting with clients. I mean, I could have, you know, you could talk to a doctor that went to, he learned this thing that a teacher taught him in med school, but he goes, you know, this is what I taught, so this is how I'm going to practice it. And then the patient dies. Who's responsible? The doctor.
Doctor, absolutely.
Yeah. So yeah, we are the ones that are responsible for the information we give.
You're absolutely right. 100%. I love it.
So is that it?
That's it. I mean that's the golden age of annuities. Highlight points is.
Yeah. Remember, don't get discouraged. I mean there's, there's a lot of people, I find a lot of brokers now starting to come into our industry and they just, they don't want to deal with market volatility anymore. They're hanging up their licenses. Then you have the other people that are being scared to death by marketers saying, you know what, you got to have your series license. Here's the reality. I do not have my series license and I will never get one unless I have to. And that's just because I am a safe money specialist.
Right.
And that's what I choose to be. And I choose to ride the golden age of annuities with that title. Like I said, if what's required, then we'll do it. But I'm a fiduciary by morals, not by dictation.
That's right.
So in other words, I call myself a moral fiduciary.
Use that terminology.
Well, it is. Do you have your certification? No, I don't. But my morals and values require me to be to act in your best interest. Because you can call yourself a fiduciary and work for some ex bank or ex financial institution and you can only sell the products that they tell you to sell. That's not a fiduciary. Fudiciary is always acting in the best interest of the client. So if you follow these principles, you will experience the golden age of annuities.
That's amazing.
So I hope this helps you guys. You have a great day and happy selling.
