Legacy Planning

Address Probate and Legacy-Growth Challenges

Preserve more of what clients leave behind with a tax-efficient wealth-transfer tool. An advisory annuity allows assets to be passed through a death benefit, deferring the income-tax burden imposed on beneficences.

• Death benefits can be paid directly to beneficiaries instead of the estate, avoiding a time-consuming probate process.
  
  
• With our advisory variable annuities, clients can choose an enhanced death benefit for an additional cost, which helps maximize the amount of money they leave behind. You’ll find options and availability at “View Our Annuities”

• Today’s advisory annuities have evolved not only to meet the needs of your clients such as legacy planning, but also to fit smoothly into your practice, including cost-conscious investment options on variable annuities, no withdrawal charges, and the ability to pull fees directly from the annuity.

Continue the Contract to Benefit Spouses

Spousal continuation is another beneficial feature offered through our advisory annuities.

• When a married couple owns the annuity and one spouse passes away, the surviving spouse as sole beneficiary can elect to continue the contract as the owner.

• As the new annuitant, the surviving spouse does not have to cash out the annuity death proceeds and the annuity has the potential to keep growing and create a greater legacy for beneficiaries down the line.

Manage Taxes with Trusts or Nonqualified Stretch Provisions

Trusts can be a great choice for your clients’ legacy needs. They are often designed to not only benefit individuals who receive income from the trust, but also to benefit the beneficiaries who inherit the assets from the trust.

• A trust that holds only a tax-deferred annuity is not subject to annual capital gains taxes, interest, or dividends (as applicable), which allows for greater accumulation of potential earnings, increasing the possibility of leaving a larger legacy.
  
  
• Our advisory variable annuities allow your clients to choose among institutional-quality investments and provide the flexibility to manage those investments without additional transaction costs.

Our nonqualified stretch provision for advisory variable annuities is another way to provide a tax-advantaged legacy for your clients’ beneficiaries.

• The provision allows the beneficiaries’ payments from a nonqualified annuity to be spread out over their respective life expectancies, reducing annual income-tax bills and decreasing the chance that the additional taxable income will put the recipient(s) into a higher tax bracket.

• The money remaining in the annuity can continue to grow tax-deferred. Note: The nonqualified stretch provision is not available on trust-owned annuities.

Simplify Charitable Legacies

If your client chooses to leave all or a part of his/her estate to a charitable organization, he/she simply names the organization as a beneficiary on the advisory annuity policy.

• The complexities of probate are avoided.

• The charitable organization receives the money tax-free.