Howdy all,
My wife and I recently came across this site after researching ways to leave Ameriprise. A little back ground about us:
We are in our late 20s and started investing on our own once we got out of college in 2005. 3 years ago we joined Ameriprise and its been a mixed bag. The first year was horrible where we went through 6 agents in the span of 6 months due to Ameriprises high turn over (though they did find time to sign us into VUL policies ). We were ready to call it quits, but decided to at least wait the year since we had already paid. Things worked out with agent 7 who we get along with quite well and we've stayed with her for 2.5 years.
However, we are moving to another state and can no longer work with her. Rather then deal with trying to find a new agent, my wife and I figured we should just try handling our investments ourselves. While reasching what to do, we came across this site and learned of the many horrors of the VUL, front loaded Mutual funds, and hidden Ameriprise fees.
Needles to say, we were a but shaken and feel duped and angry. We plan to speak to our adviser (who, for the most part, we still trust) but we are more adamant about breaking away from Ameriprise, and need advice.
Some questions I have:
-With regards to our VUL policies, is it possible to reduce the benefit to a lower amount, and thus reduce the surrender charge and premium? Our current surrender charge is about $7k for each policy. Each policy also holds about $20k.
-What closing charges can we expect for transferring our Roth IRA, One Account amounts, and mutual funds?
-In addition to Vanguard, what our firms do people suggest looking into?
Thanks in advance for the help!
My wife and I recently came across this site after researching ways to leave Ameriprise. A little back ground about us:
We are in our late 20s and started investing on our own once we got out of college in 2005. 3 years ago we joined Ameriprise and its been a mixed bag. The first year was horrible where we went through 6 agents in the span of 6 months due to Ameriprises high turn over (though they did find time to sign us into VUL policies ). We were ready to call it quits, but decided to at least wait the year since we had already paid. Things worked out with agent 7 who we get along with quite well and we've stayed with her for 2.5 years.
However, we are moving to another state and can no longer work with her. Rather then deal with trying to find a new agent, my wife and I figured we should just try handling our investments ourselves. While reasching what to do, we came across this site and learned of the many horrors of the VUL, front loaded Mutual funds, and hidden Ameriprise fees.
Needles to say, we were a but shaken and feel duped and angry. We plan to speak to our adviser (who, for the most part, we still trust) but we are more adamant about breaking away from Ameriprise, and need advice.
Some questions I have:
-With regards to our VUL policies, is it possible to reduce the benefit to a lower amount, and thus reduce the surrender charge and premium? Our current surrender charge is about $7k for each policy. Each policy also holds about $20k.
-What closing charges can we expect for transferring our Roth IRA, One Account amounts, and mutual funds?
-In addition to Vanguard, what our firms do people suggest looking into?
Thanks in advance for the help!