Accounts Managed By Industry Pioneer
Foresight Investment Advisors is a registered investment advisor based in Hot Springs, Arkansas with clients across the United States who are either retired or planning for retirement. We help our clients reach their retirement dreams by assisting them with income planning and investment strategies.
The investments we offer are via separately managed accounts. Our FIA Retirement Companion Accounts advance the concept of a fixed index annuity by offering total liquidity, reduced costs, and fully transparent investment holdings. The FIA Retirement Companion Account is the creation of insurance actuary, Michael Carmody, CFA, FSA, a pioneer in the fixed index annuity industry. His partner in Foresight Investment Advisors is Steve Irwin, who brings over 29 years of experience in the insurance and financial services industry.
Michael Carmody, CFA, FSA
Founder and Account Manager
Insurance companies employ actuaries—experts in risk management—to manage the profitability of their insurance products and investment portfolios. Michael Carmody, CFA, FSA, a pioneer in the index annuity industry, is the account manager of Foresight Investment Advisors.
Michael graduated valedictorian from Lipscomb University in 1991 before obtaining his Fellowship in the Society of Actuaries. In the mid-1990s, he designed the actuarial model for one of the first index annuities and went on to develop the fastest growing, most successful launch of an index annuity in product history. Prior to co-founding Foresight Investment Advisors, Michael spent a decade consulting insurance companies on index annuity design and teaching advanced actuarial courses. He also founded Just Actuarial Material, an education firm that teaches actuaries from all over the world. For about a decade, 90% of all people that became actuaries either purchased his training courses or attended his lectures on how to control risk and maintain profitability through investment strategy. Michael earned his CFA Charter in August 2014. Michael has continued his passion for teaching by offering CFA Exam preparation through his company Passed Tense.
After a conversation with Steve Irwin, a top marketer of index annuities, Michael saw a significant need to design an investment account that mimicked an index annuity. By using a separately managed account platform, Michael was able to significantly reduce the high undisclosed costs the insurance companies charge for these index annuities. He essentially created an index annuity without the costly insurance components. After a tremendous amount of research and back-testing, the Foresight Investment Advisors’ (FIA) Retirement Companion Account was born.
As account manager, Michael uses his knowledge of the underlying investments in index annuities (and their shortcomings) to create risk-adjusted strategies that emphasize positive returns in market up years and minimize losses in market down years. His extensive knowledge of how insurance companies constantly maintain their profitability is passed on directly to the consumer.
Steve Irwin
Founder and Managing Member
Steve has been serving the insurance and financial needs of senior clients for over twenty-nine years.
He has developed a passion for working with retirees who want to minimize risk and ensure their money lasts. Steve’s success with clients in Arkansas led him to share his knowledge and techniques to hundreds of agents and advisors from around the nation.
He founded Irwin Financial Group, Inc., the fastest growing fixed index annuity wholesale company in the United States from 2000 to 2009, which he sold in 2010. A well-known advocate of fixed index annuities, Steve was the only person in the country to successfully encourage his Senators and Congressman to co-sponsor a bill that ultimately overturned Rule 151A, which would have made fixed index annuities a security instead of an insurance product.
Realizing there were not enough investment options tailored for retirees or pre-retirees, Steve started out on a search to find additional options. Unable to find a solution that met his needs, he came up with a concept that reduced risk and volatility while providing portfolio diversification and enlisted the support of insurance actuary Michael Carmody, an expert in insurance investment risk management. Together they created Foresight Investment Advisors, LLC, and the FIA Retirement Companion Account.
The FIA Retirement Companion Account is designed for retirees and pre-retirees who are seeking to conservatively grow their retirement nest egg the best way possible. It was designed to mimic the strategy of a fixed index annuity, providing growth during an up market while reducing the chances of losses during a down market. It also addresses the issues raised by critics about fixed indexed annuities including lack of liquidity, high undisclosed costs, complexity, and misleading strategies.