On Monday, President Obama announced a series of measures to expand tax credits for retirement savings, and said he would promote "the availability of annuities and other forms of guaranteed lifetime income, which transform savings into guaranteed future income, reducing the risks that retirees will outlive their savings or that their retirees' living standards will be eroded by investment losses or inflation."
Considering all the effort the industry has been putting into fighting the Securities and Exchange Commission's Rule 151A and garnering support for the two bills that would officially define indexed annuities as insurance products, this seems like a huge win for agents who sell annuities.
In fact, the Insured Retirement Institute (IRI) even put out a press release applauding the president. Cathy Weatherford, president and CEO of IRI, said, "This president knows that Social Security alone, especially in its ever-diminishing state, will not be enough for Baby Boomers when they retire."
It's possible that the president's endorsement of annuities could be just the push that the Meeks-Price legislation and its Senate counterpart, S. 1389, need to overturn 151A. The National Association for Fixed Annuities and other industry groups have been fighting hard to gain as much legislative support as possible for these bills, but, according to NAFA executive director Kim O'Brien, the health reform effort has put the bills out of many Congressmen's minds.
