Annuity Issuers Need Regulatory Clarity: Scott Golde

Scott Golde is unhappy about the current state of U.S. annuity regulation.

Golde is senior vice president, chief ethics and compliance officer at Jackson Financial, a Lansing, Michigan-based annuity giant.

Golde earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from Indiana University and a law degree from Washington University in St. Louis.

Early in his career, he worked for four years as a prosecutor with the U.S. Department of Justice. Some of the cases involved money laundering schemes and other financial crimes. He then was a partner at the law firm Armstrong Teasdale, and an in-house securities compliance attorney at Edward Jones and Scottrade.

In 2016, he became a legal executive in the Jackson asset management and broker-dealer operations. He became deputy general counsel–insurance, in 2019, and he assumed his current position at Jackson in 2021.

In his spare time, he teaches insurance law at Michigan State’s law school, and he chairs the Michigan Life and Health Insurance Guaranty Association, a nonprofit organization that protects Michigan policyholders against life and health issuer insolvencies.

He answered questions via email about the regulatory challenges annuity issuers are facing. The answers to the questions in this interview have been edited.

THINKADVISOR: What do you see as the biggest challenge the annuity industry needs to overcome in order to increase access to annuities and make it easier for advisors to incorporate them into their clients’ overall wealth management portfolios?

SCOTT GOLDE: One key challenge is the need to improve clarity around the important solutions annuities can offer clients. This will allow financial professionals to clearly articulate the value proposition of annuities.

Clarity will also enable financial professionals to more easily identify when these products should be a part of clients’ holistic investment portfolios and help clients reach their financial goals.

As a leading seller of retail annuities in the U.S. with one of the largest distribution networks, Jackson plays a critical role in bringing the industry together to help Americans achieve better retirement outcomes.

Jackson recently hosted a two-day legal and compliance summit in Washington, with the goal of promoting partnership, collaboration and transparency among Jackson’s distribution, legal and compliance leaders and their counterparts at more than 20 distribution partner firms.

We know there is a continued need for increased education among both financial professionals and the clients they serve, which is why Jackson is committed to simplifying the way we describe annuities, ensuring investment freedom in our products and working with distributors and regulators to make annuities easier to understand so that they are more accessible to those who need them.

We have also committed significant resources to ensuring that these important financial solutions are integrated into the technology and platforms used by our valued financial professionals.

What are insurers doing to respond to all of the many regulatory changes?

Given the current pace of regulatory change, Jackson and other carriers need to better understand the implications these new regulations have on our products and then determine how we can mitigate the challenges these changes have on our distribution partners.

We work closely with organizations like the American Council of Life Insurers and the Insured Retirement Institute, and we have a strong government relations team that actively monitors regulatory activity and engages with regulators on potential and newly enacted policies.