quote:
And the flexibility... lets say 8 years into my annuity life insurance scheme from Beefdawg, I decide I want to get into real estate because the RE market crashes again, I am still locked into my investment contract or I lose everything I've already put in for the previous 8 years.

Or maybe I get laid off and spend 6 months getting back on my feet, and can't make my contracted contributions.... with BeefDawg's plan, I'm fricked.

That's not close to true.

First of all, an annuity and cash value life insurance are two completely separate and very different investment vehicles.

You say you're a financial expert, but you just said several things that aren't true at all.

These are not binding contracts for you. Every one of these investments can be liquidated/surrended and either all, or nearly all of your contributions returned. Plus gains depending on when surrendered.

Not to mention all of them have a free 10% withdrawal per year without penalties or fees of any kind. And they all have hardship provisions for things like extended illness or loss of employment where you can withdraw 50% in any year without penalty.

The annuities also have a decreasing penalty period of 7 years. 7%, 7%, 6%, 6%, 5%, 4%, 3%. After that, you can take 100% without any penalties. They also give you the better of your market gains or your guarantee and then locks that in as your new base.

For example, if you put $100,000 in, and the market does 10%, you have $110,000 in there beginning year two. Now in year two, if the market does -10%, your $110,000 goes to $116,600 (guaranteed +6%). Again, the higher of.

And if something crazy happens in your life in year three, and you want to surrender the policy, you can. You would simply pay a 6% penalty. You'd walk away with $109,600 instead of $116,600. And as I said, that penalty goes down each year and is gone after year 7. In year 8 if you want to cash in the whole thing, you get 100%, including all your growth.

As for the life insurance, it's very similar with a decreasing surrender penalty, except a portion of your premiums have of course gone towards a death benefit amount, so there is certainly potential early on of getting back less than you paid in. But that's typically not the case after year 4. Once you hit year 5 in these things, your gains have usually well surpassed your premiums paid in. And if you chose to cash it out, you'd get all your money back and then some.

So be careful what you say about this stuff if you don't know exactly what you're talking about. You just gave a lot of misinformation and could cause people to make misinformed decisions.