"greed, incompetence and evasiveness"

SallyG

http://www.moneymarketing.co.uk/news-and-analysis/pensions/lucian-camp-the-toxic-elements-that-led-to-annuities-downfall/2008830.article

"What went wrong was that the financial services industry so perverted and distorted all three of these big ideas that in the end they all became almost untenable."

"What is particularly tragic is that over the years, the industry managed to tarnish all three of these big and important ideas to such an extent that within the sector at least, the hammer blows dealt to all of them have been widely welcomed.
At last, industry experts and commentators have said, these terrible rip-offs are being brought to, or at least towards, a much-deserved end. The fact that in their absence many consumers would inevitably be exposed to hugely dangerous levels of risk has been largely ignored."

atush

Not seeing the relevance to this forum. If you are up for debate why not the Arms?

kidmugsy

"And now in the case of annuities, it is ... a toxic combination of product providers and distributors conspiring to create a dysfunctional market providing unacceptably poor outcomes for the majority of consumers. This has been exacerbated by a bunch of other factors, including ... the unintended knock-on consequences of quantitative easing."

My, what drivel. The overwhelming explanation for lousy annuity rates isn't the shortcomings of the insurance companies, it's the action of governments and their central banks to drive down interest rates. That's not an exacerbating factor - it's the main factor. And he's using a common dishonest trope: he wants you to think "unintended" means unforeseeable, but it doesn't. It was entirely foreseeable and widely foreseen.

If the conspiracy of which he speaks had worked, selling annuities would be so profitable that firms would be fighting to enter the market. In fact the number selling annuities has dwindled.