InsuranceNewsNet Calls NBC Broadcast “Tabloid Journalism”
April 19, 2008
Dateline NBC’s April 13 report on high-pressure sales of index annuities (IAs) to seniors was “tabloid journalism” and presented an unbalanced view of annuities, said a statement released by InsuranceNewsNet.com, a website for insurance producers.
The statement contained the following excerpts:
- “The amount of complaints against indexed annuity agents and providers was grossly exaggerated in your program. Attorney General Lori Swanson’s comments that these unscrupulous sales are happening on a large scale is unsubstantiated.”
- “Plenty of IAs on the market today contain surrender charges as little as one year, yet [the report] instead focused on a 16-year surrender charge product that even contained a 10% premium bonus, an important benefit to the client.”
- “In 2005, there was only one complaint for every $260,000,000 in premium, or .1% of all premium (Source: NAIC closed complaint files 2006, Advantage Compendium).”
- “While we agree that there are a few insurance agents practicing deceptive, unscrupulous sales practices with ‘equity indexed annuities,’ there were far too many important facts about annuities as a whole that were left unexplained to the viewers.
- At the heart of the matter is your show's completely biased, one-sided view of the facts, from two of the biggest opponents of what are now called Indexed Annuities (IAs) – never once did Chris Hansen provide an opposing viewpoint in support of IAs.”
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