NYT: Making Annuities Easier to Understand

The more I work in the field of elder law, and teach classes, the more I am convinced that enterprises who market to families and seniors fail to realize greater transparency can help their commercial products and enterprises succeed. 

Thus, it is useful to read a New York Times' column on annuities, one that appears to be the first of a series.  The author, Ron Lieber, begins his column on The Simplest Annuity Explainer We Could Write:

Annuities can be complicated. This column will not be.

 

After I wrote two weeks ago about getting tossed out of the office of an annuity salesman, there was a surprising clamor for more information about this room-clearing topic. One group of readers just wanted a basic explainer on how annuities work. For that, read on.

 

Another group of readers worried that those hearing of my experience might assume that all annuities are bad, and that all people who sell them use subterfuge to do so. Neither of those is true: Next week, I’ll introduce you to some reasonable people who are trying to use certain annuities in new and improved ways.

My thanks to Dickinson Law colleague Laurel Terry for the heads up!