AXA Equitable Accumulator

[calmloki]

Anyone have any input on this? Have a friend who claims 6% return guaranteed. that guarantee kinda spooks me. OTOH. Know nothing other than that it was suggested by a friend.

[brewer12345]

Run, fast.

[MasterBlaster]

let me guess that it's something like this ...

This is a variable annuity, The 6 percent is only guaranteed for 2 or 3 years. And to get your money out at the end you must annuitize your stash at their rate of 1.5%.

[FinanceDude]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MasterBlaster let me guess that it's something like this ... This is a variable annuity, The 6 percent is only guaranteed for 2 or 3 years. And to get your money out at the end you must annuitize your stash at their rate of 1.5%.

Not quite........

[FinanceDude]

Quote:

Originally Posted by calmloki Anyone have any input on this? Have a friend who claims 6% return guaranteed. that guarantee kinda spooks me. OTOH. Know nothing other than that it was suggested by a friend.

More likely, this is the scenario. You put XXXX with AXA. You get an increase of 6% a year, regardless of the market, however, this is an INCOME BASE guarantee, NOT a GUARANTEED return. If you decide to get income, you get a percentage of the INCOME BASE every year. Noone is offering 6% guaranteed yearly returns in this interest rate environment.

Tread carefully.........

[calmloki]

Just to be clear, and bearing in mind I've done no looking myself and can be colored wildly skeptical as well as you all - are any of you posters familiar with this specific product or are you just, with me, very dubious? As posted it reads that only Brewer might have actual knowledge - What say you Brew? Dubious or specific knowledge of the product?

[brewer12345]

I do not have knowledge of the specific product, but these things are pretty much commodities because all the big sellers of variable annuities with secondary guarantees (of which Axa is one) sell through much the same channels to much the same customers. All of the products have become a lot less generous than they were, and most were overpriced find-the-lady games to begin with.

[dgoldenz]

There are fixed index annuities offering much better income account accumulation than 6% guaranteed. Off the top of my head, RBC has a 10-year roll-up at 8% compounded, American National has one that goes up to 16 years at 8% compounded, and Aviva has one that can go up to 18 years at 8% compounded. Depends on your time horizon and if you truly plan on taking withdrawals as income instead of taking out the cash value accumulation in a lump sum. If you die with money left in the income account, some annuities will pay out the full value of the income account over 5 years to your beneficiary, or they can just take the cash accumulation value in one lump sum. If you don't know how an income annuity works, that explanation was probably confusing. I can elaborate if you want, but didn't want to type up 4 paragraphs.