Choosing the right broker or agent is as important as choosing the right annuity contract. You either can get a really good person or a really bad person. The person you choose has to take your interest, concerns and suitability into account. This means he or she has to ask you many questions and get to know you and your situation, after they find out your needs, they can then make an appropriate recommendation for you.

To immediately find out if your agent or broker has an ethics problem, you can visit the NASD web site at nasd.com and check out their public record. All you need is their name and the brokerage firm they are with. If there is or might have been a complaint about them, it will be listed under the disclosure tab.

Now, if the advisor had a complaint, is it the end of the world? No. With the market going down, clients might complain if they lost money. What you need to worry about is a pattern of behavior. If the advisor has had several complaints, walk away from them. It simply is not worth it no matter what they say. You will also want to ask the advisor about the complaint to see what they say.

I will tell you they will be very uncomfortable discussing it. This is important though, as it gives you an advantage. It shows the advisor that you are astute with your money and they know they can pull no punches. Remember, you are interviewing this person to manage your money, and you must be 100% comfortable with this person.

The place where and typically find the most inept advisors is banks. Usually bank brokers are lazy sell only annuities. They are very poorly trained and they are there for (and I quote a former colleague) "the low hanging fruit" meaning the less astute investor. Bank advisors typically have quotas they have to meet to keep their job and they are also very limited in products they can offer. If banks are so great, why do they offer such limited products? Simple really. Number one is money. The smaller the "approved" list is, the more money they can ask from the companies they do business with. Number two, with advisors who are not the brightest bulbs on the tree, keeping it simple is important. Afterall, do we really want to confuse these experts? This is not always the case. There are good bank advisors and bank programs out there, but they are few and far between. In over a decade, I have met literally a handful of good bank advisors. Also, it is important for you to realize that most of the senior management at banks do not even use their own financial advisors.

Should you go to a big firm and buy an annuity, for example Morgan Stanley? I would say this is not your best answer. Their "approved" list is usually extremely limited and they usually contain their proprietary funds. This is not always bad, it just does not seem right. As far as being educated on annuities, they are not the firms first priority, so they may not be as up-to-date on the products in the market place. They also may not offer the best products available. So I would not recommend going to big firms to buy an annuity.

This leaves insurance agents and independent brokers. Insurance agent without question are experts in life insurance, but when it comes to annuities they are usually very restricted in what they can offer. They are usually only allowed to sell the parent company's annuity and this is something that is slowly changing, but not fast enough. The proprietary annuity is, generally speaking, not as competitive as other annuities in the market place. With a captive sales force it does not matter. They will sell the company's annuities because they have to. We do not recommend this option.

Finally we have independent brokers. I have found this group to be the best to buy annuities from. They can usually sell any company's annuity they want. They do have "preferred" lists but they have the ability to shop for the consumer and that is where most other options failed. Now, there are some cautions when buying from an independent agent.

Money is often a motivating factor, generally speaking, since they have to work harder to get clients. They tend to sell higher commissioned products and there is always the risk that "soft" money plays a role in their decision process. Soft money is marketing money given to agents for marketing support and the consumer generally cannot find out if an agent accepts this soft money. Even though this soft money is legal it should not be. It is a fancy way of saying if you give us your annuity business we will take care of you, wink, wink. Even with this in the mix, as far as selection and competence level we find independent brokers to be the best option for annuity consumers.

You should always do your own investment research as well. To research variable annuities go to www.annuityiq.com.