The National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors says it will fight efforts by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to classify indexed annuities as securities.
If the SEC is successful, it would end up helping to regulate the indexed annuity market.
"In our view, [indexed annuity] products do not meet the test for determining whether a product is a 'security'," NAIFA President Jeffrey Taggart says in an announcement of the NAIFA board's decision to oppose the SEC indexed annuity proposal, which was released in June.
"Unlike the case with investment products such as mutual funds and individual stocks, with an indexed annuity the investment risk of a downturn in the related index rests with the issuer of the product, not the consumer," Taggart says.