Allianz Lawsuit Goes To Class Action

• ANN E. U- LINDSLEY said,

  I am very concerned about my investment. I would like to speak to an Attorney concerning this problem. This investment was for my demise.I was told by representative I would have nothing to worry about…Please contact me as soon as possible so I can have all explained to me, Another senior here I feel was taken advantage of ,and I want to be one of those who are counted in the law suit..

• admin said,

  Hello Ann,

  While I do not know the details of your situation, or the product you purchased, your first step would be to contact the insurance carrier and express your concerns. If they refuse to do anything about it you have two options.

  1. Contact your state Department of Insurance and file a complaint. this is free and it might help you.

  2. Contact an attorney, but an attorney will always tell you to sue. So instead, perhaps contact another financial adviser and have them look at the product you own. If that does not help you can go here, https://www.lawyersandsettlements.com/submit_form.html?label=allianz to have an attorney look at your situation. Just remember an attorney will be expensive and it they should be used as a last resort. I hope this helps!

• The Annuity Guy said,

  Careful here. I agree that these annuities are WAY oversold, there is no denying it. However, when does the insurance company become liable for the individual agent’s lack of professionalism?

  Where is the class action suit against Smith and Wesson for people killed with handguns? It’s just another case of attorney’s looking to profit.

• admin said,

  The comments were not really geared to the insurance company. They were geared more to use the insurance company to help rectify the situation.

  While I agree the insurance carrier should not be liable for their agents, not employees, actions they do have an obligation to keep bad products off the market.

  For example, a 10% client bonus annuity that pays the agent a 10% commission cannot be good for the client. No company would layout 20% of an investment and not expect to profit from the product. With this type of annuity the consumer usually gets slammed.

  I do not think it is just about attorney’s looking for profit, yes that is a big part of it, but the states are suing as well. There is simply little question to the products, i.e. Masterdex 10, being good products for the consumer.

  With that being said, why did all these states approve these products? Who is in charge? Now they will turn around and sue the insurance carrier? I think the states bear some responsibility here as well.

  It is just a shame that many people got bad advice and bad products and now the lawyer’s will clean up, not the clients who actually lost money.

• Anonymous said,

  if these annuities were so unsuitable, why would the states allow agents to sell these annuities up to age 85? The masterdex 10 is a good annuity.

• Chester Klann said,

  I had a financial consultant who tried to get me to roll
  my Fidelity Variable Annuity over to one of your Indexed
  Variable Annuity. Since I was almost 80, he told me I
  had to do this immediately before I turned 80. I felt
  pressured and that he desperately wanted to get his
  commision on my $1,000,000 Fidelity Annuity.

  It seemed as though I was in line to be taken. Was I
  right?
  C. Klann

• More misinformation said,

  You need to get your facts straight before writing articles about companies. You are referring to the Masterdex 10 product in your “article”. This carries a 9% commission not 10 % and does not have a 10 year surrender charge. The product is builk for income and can insure a senior never out lives their income. They can begin taking money out after the first year and them sweep acumulation value and gains out after the 5th. While I think it is horrible to put all of someones money in a product like this..I also think it is equally bad to not have any of someones money in a product like this. The problem is people write whatever they want and do not even know what they are writing about.

• atlmeb said,

  Are you saying that the MasterDex 10 is a good or a bad product.? It does not look like it is one the products listed in the lawsuite but it does promise a 10% bonus upfront.

• marc said,

  hi. I am a 43yr physician. I fully fund a 401k for myself & wife each year. andhave since age 23. I own my practice and have limited options for tax sheltered, suit sheltered investments for retirement. I would like to retire as early as possible. The masterdex 10 seems a good option since i have a 15-17 year window to retirement. In the last 3 yrs i put 156k into the master dex..current worth is 183k..my other investments total at 469k…is this a good situation for me? bettter choices??

• admin said,

  Chester -

  It looks like you made a solid decision. The commissions go down at age 80 which is why you felt such pressure to buy the product.

  More Misinformation –

  I guess you need to get a better IMO because you can certainly get more than a 9% commission on these products. All annuities are built to not allow investors to outlive their money, but only through annuitization. The fact is they are a bad product. Any product that can layout up to 20% of the premium through commissions and bonuses is not good for the consumer, period.

  The only people who think these products are good are the people who sell them. I am sorry, but any product that has a mandatory annuitization clause in order to get the benefits of the contract is not good for consumers. If they were there would be no lawsuits. As to why states approve products for sale up to age 85, we have no idea, but certainly the states do have some responsibility for this mess.

  Marc,

  We cannot give you specific financial advice and we would refer you to a qualified financial adviser to answer those questions.

• Nancy said,

  My father, at age 84, was talked into a Master Dex 10 Annuity. I am in the process of cashing them in and seeing how much money was lost in the whole process. His investment was making good money at Kemper and his agent saw fit to transfer all of it to get his hefty commission. No one will ever convince me that it wasn’t a dirty trick. If I could stick all the money under a mattress, I would. I don’t trust anyone now.

• Brenda said,

  My father was pushed to change an account to an annuity by one of Allianz’s reps. He told them he absolutely did not want an annuity, but it came out that way, anyway. There is a pending lawsuit in California. Do you know how to get him in touch with them?

  Thanks.

• Jim Kronenberger said,

  I was told specifically my I could get my money back if we needed it. I gave Allianze 10,000.00 in cash. A year later it was only worth 9,000.00. Barry Dalby lied to us.

  Jim Kronenberger
  St. Petersburg, FL.

• admin said,

  Nancy,

  Your father did get a bad deal, in our opinion. You may wish to contract an attorney to seek your options.

  Brenda,

  We do not know how to get in contact with the attorney’s handling the class action. You may wish to contact California’s Insurance Department to get more information.

• Nancy said,

  Thanks for your advice. That is exactly what I am going to do.

• Mariano J. Del Valle said,

  We feel like we were ripped -off as well. the agent was not upfront with answering our questions. Allianz does not allow you to track your investment. they send you an annual statement and you have no choice, but to accept their terms.You can’t correct any account that is not performing for your well being. If you borrow from your owm money , you get hit with a hefty interest rate. We think the goverment should step in and stop these thieves from taking advantage of the elderly. The financial planners call themselves certified financial planners, when they are really certified thieves preying on the elderly.

• Dennis said,

  An Allianz agent once put it to me this way regarding their bonus products – ‘They credit these bonuses but rarely pay it’.

  Unfortunately, the insurance industry is great at designing annuity products, heavily favoring the issuing company with very little for the customer.

  The practices of the annuity agent community is only second to the immorality of stock brokers.

  Furthermore, Allianz and most major issureres of annuities invest in the bond market, now totally on the skids and could collapse. All domestic annuities are denominated in Federal Reserve Notes and therefore will be worthless when the USD collapses.

  I would also say that the fervorous marketing of these products is a well-contrived plan to take your money.

  If I had sizable amounts of funds in annuity products, I would strongly consider vacating, regardless of the cost.

  Alternatives that make the most sense to me would be to have hard metal assets, real money, not phony paper dollars that now amount to little more than IOU’s.

• Steve said,

  It’s unfortunate that some individuals get stuck with a product that is not suited for them, but the reality is that it’s not Allianz fault, it’s the agent who sold it to you, an independent agent that represents several insurance companies. The fact is Allianz has several good products that have helped clients never lose any of their investment, especially in times like these. It’s to bad you have dirty attorney’s who try to convince someone that were sold a product that was bad, and in reality it very well may have been the best investment for the client.

• Mike said,

  Steve,

  I agree that Allianz does have “some” good products, but mostly on the VA side. I realize that the current economic climate will spur “safe money” sales, however, the fact is that over time EIA’s do not perform that well. They are geared to slightly out perform fixed annuities and are not equity investment replacement products. I do not like lawyers either, but it is Allianz’s fault that they offer bad products, to think otherwise is crazy. They designed them, marketed them and said they were good when, in fact, they were not. To shoft total blame to the agent is unfair, if the product was not offered then it would not have been sold it is as simple as that.

• Carol said,

  I was talked into two Allianz Bonus-Index Annunities. I must concur with comments above which indicated agents were extremely negligent in explaining the fact that the owner of the policy never receives the full value of the policy, even with annuitization. There is a sentence: Cash Value–(only) “90% of Premiums received will be credited to the Cash Value.” When I called the company today, “new” information never shared by my agent: 1. To receive full benefits, heirs will need to annuitize the policy over a period of at least 5 years, no matter how much or little the amount, depending on the company’s decisions. 2. There is no way to track the progress of the policy, except for the once-a-year statement. 3. Also, re-allocation is not allowed, except for a small window of a few days at the anniversary date of the policy. I’m sure there are others, but I hope the class-action lawsuit will be of some benefit other than the lawyers, company, and agents.

• David said,

  Hi there, I’m currently 53 years old and 3 years ago I got sold on the MasterDex 10 product.
  I thought it was very odd that we can track the see how the product actually perform except once
  a year as mentioned above. In any case, two months ago, my friend (also bought a boat load
  of this) and I tried to contact our rep who sold the product but he’s MIA and no where to be found.
  With that and some research, we finally found out some of the things he told us was not true and worst
  part is the required annunitization which means we’ll never get back the investment.
  From reading all of the above, I’m wondering if I should just dump what I have and take the hit or try
  the legal route.

• Georgia Edmondson said,

  What has happened to the class action lawsuit I was part of a while ago.We won but I have never been repaid several thousand dollars that was wrongfully held out when the stock sold. We were supposed to get a bonus but instead were penalized. Who is handling the case as of today? I would appreciate getting some up to date information and facts.Thanks for your help.
  Sincerely,
  Georgia Edmondson

• Tim H. - agent said,

  To say a product is bad simply due to commissions paid is misleading. First off – 10% is going to the annuity. So only 10% isn’t going.

  You should just state the facts about any annuity, instead of misleading the general public with your biased opinions.

  I have very little repsect for your opinion and website. As far as Allianz being sued…it seems to be over suitability, and not the product itself.

  Unfortunately, there are jerks in every line of business. If anyone feels they were mislead by any agent, they should immediately contact their respective states Dept. of Insurance. They are set-up specifically to protect the consumer on all insurance matters.

  As far as this site goes…state the facts, not your opinion.

  Instead of bashing a product, show specifics at to why the MasterDex X is a poor product in relation to other annuities of the same type.

  Just because a co. pays a higher commission doesn’t mean the product is bad. It could be that other Ins. Cos. are keeping a larger share of the profit for themselves. Or that those Ins. Cos’ have higher overhead. There are many factors involved.

  Bottom line is which product is going to be the most beneficial to the client.

  That’s it. End of story.

• Withheld said,

  I hope they put the Agent that sold me this in jail. The only people who will make money is Allianz! I would nver invest money with them again in any account. When you hear Allianz run! Frank in Houston you are worst then the mortgage fraud!

• Nancy said,

  I met with the Dept. of Insurance/Fraud division about the agents who sold my father Master Dex 10 annuities and tried to get them to return the bonus monies they received totally $30,000. That does not include the tens of thousands we lost in penalties. The response from the agents from the Dept. of Insurance was that until we found other people in the area where my dad lived who may have also bought these policies, there was nothing they could do. They also said that they couldn’t take the chance on these agents losing their careers for something like this. I was in total shock and speechless. I am supposed do the investigative work for the Dept. of Insurance? What a total joke.

• Linda said,

  I feel the same as the above respondents. I can’t believe my financial advisor never told me any of the negatives…I guess it sounded too good to be true…and unfortunately, its been a financial nightmare. Hopefully the courts will help with this fradulent marketing of these products.

• Grace Cruz said,

  Hi I have been fighting with Aig Annity for almost fifteen years. This was suppost to be a fixed interest of fife percent. And should I need monty it would be always available. All lies. Now as of today they have the nerve to tell me that this account was opened in 2004. I cannot they can get away with this type of busniss. I have been fightint tith this agent all these years. What the agent and Washington Mutual and AID Annuity and also the agent for AIG is that I have saved every single pieace of paper and the interesest of the AIG annity was going into my checking account all this time. This is how I found out the interest was not almost five percent for the lifetime of the annity. 909-861-6898 I desperately need help. I have been ill since 1986 and all these year fightig with this agent. He is at the point where he thinks the money is his. I want all the interest and all the charges that were added on. I refuse to pay a surredder fees they have added on. I want for all the pain and suffering I have been through this agent and Aig Annuity and Washington mutual bank. Please help me. Now they have the nerve to say this account was opened in 2004 are they kidding me.

• Mike said,

  Tim H.

  We have consistently pointed out the products flaws. Commissions are simply part of the problem as it clouds the judgment of what is right for the client and what is good for the advisor. Frankly, forced annuitization is never good for the client. In other words the client has to wait, what, 15 years to get their money back how the hell is that good?

  Until you can prove these products ARE good then I would save your comments. Look around we have always pointed out the flaws of the products and why they stink. Just because people tell the truth and you do not like it does not give you the right to misrepresent the facts.

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