I want to see "safeguards" put in place to protect others like me from being lied to or deceived by unscrupulous sales agents who even have nerve to call themselves financial advisors to mislead us more into thinking they have our best interest at heart. But they and the insurance company who invented such a complex product have only one thing at heart and that is to get you to put your money in a Variable Annuity and then the insurance giants have your money to invest for themselves and the agents make a big commission and they get trails or residuals too. If the agents are telling people the whole truth and nothing but the truth but that is where the problem comes in. If most folks new the ramifications and risk involved in this product they would never invest any of their money, since one must live to be about 85 years old to actually benefit if at all from the high fictitious fabricated interest rates they promise. You basically will not live long enough to even get your "own" money back, since they will determine the exact amount on money per year they will pay you. Why is it that Reverse Mortgages have non bias counselors, per law, working with folks to inform them of this complex product, so why is this not set in place for variable annuities, to stop us from be scammed or lied to by sales people who put their own twist to these complex products. The 7% or 6% interest they promise you is not a real number it is artificial. They do not show the 4% fee on your statements either, (where are disclosure laws? Don't insurance companies need to follow these laws, are they too powerful to be governed by disclouser laws) and most folks have no idea you are paying this and you are losing money every month and still paying these fees. So you are paying them to lose your money for you and the 7% is not real. look into this and you will see what I mean. Remember this important fact, start to call the "toll free phone number on your statement" with your questions and by pass your lying sales agentand get the truth form the customer service folks per your insurance company.The devil is in the details. Start with can I walk in after 10 years and get my money that was receiving 7% interest, or what ever rate you were promised. Ask what your total fees are per year? on $100,000 tat 4% that is $4,000 per year or $40,000 per 10 years and if your contact value went to $60,000 not you know it is not all die to the bad market. they should only get paid a fee from us if they are making our contract value go up based on what shares they choose or portfolios they put together. Who of us gets paid for not producing a positive result, so why should they get paid. They blame everything on the bad market, they are hiding behind this remark to get your money. I just don't even know how they get away with marketing such a complex product that 98% of the time is not suitable for no one but them. I just don't git it. Maybe they are making the rules for the government, maybe they are the government or they are so powerful they control the government. All I can say at this point is take another look and ask lots of questions about what you think you have when it comes to variable annuities, you may be unpleasantly surprised. Then be kind enough to others on here know what you too discovered that you were misinformed about. God Bless and Good Luck!