Don Rowe: A Convert to Gift Annuities
Before coming to Otterbein St. Marys with his beloved wife, Louise, Don was a sales trainer and insurance agent and manager with Nationwide Insurance Company. With his CLU (Certified Licensed Underwriter) credentials, Don led sessions throughout the United States speaking with insurance agents on a variety of topics. Whole life, universal, fixed and prime were common words in Don's vocabulary before his idyllic days at Otterbein, where he enjoys sunsets on the lake, watching the migration of birds and serving others through his skills as a woodworker and manager.
Don is fluent in a variety of topics and loves to talk about his work, with the exception of one topic: annuities. "The word ‘annuity' was a bad word to me as an insurance agent and trainer. For annuities sold by insurance companies," he explains, "benefit the company and not the client."
Don says that with commercial annuities, the residuum goes to the company, not to the annuitant. For that reason, Don followed a career practice not to promote annuities to clients or colleagues who were trained to advocate them. That attitude about commercial annuities continued when Don and Louise moved to Otterbein.
As the years rolled along, Don grew in his love for Otterbein and began to see it as a place of caring and trust—not that he ever doubted that! Don's parents lived at Otterbein in the late 1980s and 90s. Don's father and mother, a farmer and teacher respectively, loved and were loved at Otterbein. They were very generous and took a special interest in giving many charitable gifts, particularly for benevolent care. Don recalls visiting them in their home by Grand Lake St. Marys and eventually considering Otterbein as the place where he and Louise would retire to enjoy life more fully.
After Louise experienced an extended illness and ultimately passed away, Don began to see, as the compassionate community of Otterbein comforted him, that a charitable gift annuity was a way to express his thanks to his fellow residents while receiving lifetime payments for himself as well. Don saw that, unlike commercial annuities, a charitable gift annuity could benefit and assist his charity of choice—in this instance, Otterbein—and help it achieve its charitable mission. In addition to his payments, he also received a significant charitable deduction and the possibility of other tangible benefits as well.
With the annuity rate based on the participant's age, Don sees gift annuities as ideal for an older population. Equally beneficial, payments are partially tax-free over a period of time, and there are significant benefits in regard to capital gains, which are reported over time instead of having to be paid all at once. Don believes that both the charity and the donor benefit with advantages for both.
"Besides," beams Don, "giving makes you feel good!"