Washington Annuity News

Carnahan Cracks Down On Agent In Variable Annuity Case

Jefferson city, Missouri -- Secretary of State Robin Carnahan's Commissioner of Securities, Matt Kitzi, recently issued a consent order involving a former supervising agent at Thrivent Investment Management, Inc.

The order involves Edward Matthes, a registered broker-dealer agent in Missouri who worked for Thrivent from 2002 until February of this year. In 2004, Matthes, then a Regional Management Associate with Thrivent, and Mark Johnson, an agent who Matthes supervised, sold a variable annuity contract worth approximately $200,000 to a St. Louis-area resident who was widowed less than one month before the date of the contract.

According to the order, the widow's husband had purchased a business the day before his death, liquidating all of the couple's assets and leaving the unemployed widow with little more than the $200,000 in proceeds from his life insurance policy. The order states that Johnson, who Matthes supervised at the time, advised her to use her insurance proceeds to buy a variable annuity. The investment concentrated approximately 85-90% of her liquid net worth into an investment that carried with it taxes, IRS penalties, and surrender fees upon early withdrawal. Some of those penalties were triggered six months after the purchase when the widow had to withdraw money from the annuity to pay her property taxes.

Neither Thrivent nor Johnson was named as a Respondent in this matter, though the Securities Division has ongoing investigations into the conduct of both parties. Read more at sos.mo.gov

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	Did You Know?
	A variable annuity has two phases: an accumulation phase and a payout phase. During the accumulation phase, you make purchase payments, which you can allocate to a number of investment options. For example, you could designate 40% of your purchase payments to a bond fund, 40% to a U.S. stock fund, and 20% to an international stock fund. The money you have allocated to each mutual fund investment option will increase or decrease over time, depending on the fund's performance.