Here in California our two state retirement systems are located in Sacramento and both start with "California," the postcard is a clear attempt to make teachers believe they are responding to their defined benefit provider.
Teachers - PLEASE stop replying to these cards. The people who are behind them are not "Pension Administrators", not fiduciaries and NOT your defined benefit plan provider. The people behind these postcards are insurance agents looking to sell you junk insurance products (my opinion).
Since this is an insurance solicitation the entity behind it must put their insurance license on the advertisement. They refuse to put their name on the advertisement (I wonder why...hmmm). I looked up the insurance license on the California Insurance Department's website (license number 0B10701) and guess who comes up? R.A. Lotter Insurance Marketing, Inc.
Surprise, surprise. It's a company that primarily markets high commission Equity Indexed Annuities. Read my other blog stories to see how bad those can be.
This kind of marketing to teachers is, in my opinion, deceitful. A non-descript company that uses a postcard program to look similar to something you might receive from your State Retirement System who then uses your data to sell you products that are likely not in your best interest, please ignore this.
The next time a postcard like this shows up, please just trash it. Better yet, fill it out with my information on it and send it in!
This nonsense has to stop.
Scott Dauenhauer, CFP, MPAS, AIF
