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Lear Capital operates a series of IRA products that are related to precious metals. In this capacity, the company is one of many that offers a gold IRA.
You can get a gold IRA from many different financial organizations, and Lear Capital is one such example.
Read on for more information on the specific products, benefits, and challenges associated with Lear Capital.
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What is the Lear Capital Gold IRA?
If you are looking for a variety of precious metal products, Lear Capital can help. They offer many different financial products, including a gold IRA. This gold IRA allows you to hold physical gold in your retirement savings account.
As noted by Lear Capital, this enables a nice diversification, safety, and hedge against inflation for your retirement funds.
Gold is not the only IRA that is offered by Lear Capital. They also offer many other precious metal IRAs, including silver and platinum. You can also potentially open a precious metal IRA, which can hold any number of precious metals, not just gold.
This is in a package known as the Lear Advantage IRA, which comes with many benefits, including:
It is worth noting that many of these products and features - including real-time pricing - are not unique to Lear Capital and can be obtained elsewhere. However, they are still important. Precious metal IRAs are self-directed.
This means that you can buy and store metals from any number of sources and countries. You can also buy numerous different products, including coins, bars, and stackers.
Lear Capital gives you a chance to make these purchases through their vendors.
Finally, Lear Capital can also help you by allowing you to roll over a new IRA account. This makes it convenient to take your current IRA and roll it over to Lear.
Lear Capital Gold IRA Fees
Lear Capital does seem to go out of its way to discount certain costs, including giving you free set-up and storage, as well as providing users with a price-match guarantee. The company takes costs from customers in other ways.
You will be charged a management fee that is between $180-$260 per year. Fortunately, this fee is relatively comprehensive. It covers the cost of storage, online access, shipping gold, and insurance.
This is a flat fee, and you will likely be charged for commission on purchases.
Customer Ratings
Perhaps the best thing that Lear Capital has going for it is its extremely high customer ratings across numerous different review websites. This includes their rating on Google (4.9/5 stars) and Trust Pilot (4.9/5 stars).
Consumeraffairs.com has the company at 4.7/5 stars, with 1139 customers rating the company.
Furthermore, the Better Business Bureau has given the company an A+ rating, showing that they have treated their customers well and have not been accused of being involved in any major scam or negative event.
A quick scan through these reviews shows some relatively consistent themes. Customers praised how easy it was to start their gold or precious metal IRA, the transparent pricing, and the highly responsive customer service.
Where concerns existed, they tended to be minor. No company is perfect, and it seems clear that the company has done a good job of addressing business concerns.
This doesn't necessarily mean that all of these customers have seen their IRAs massively grow.
However, it indicates that the company has repeatedly met customer expectations, responded well to customer inquiries, and been customer-focused in their deals. This cannot always be said for financial organizations.
As such, it appears that you can invest your money with Lear Capital and know that your concerns will be addressed.
Location of Storage
If there is any negative, it is that the ability to store your precious metals was somewhat limited. Lear Capital limits its precious metals to one depository in Delaware. Some consumers did express concerns over the fact that there was only one depository.
However, it is worth noting that the location of the asset is largely irrelevant to its performance. Per IRS rules, precious metals purchased for an IRA must be stored in an IRS-approved location.
Individuals cannot easily access these metals, nor can they take them for their personal use. Furthermore, a person cannot take gold or precious metals that they already own and put them in an IRA, as doing so violates IRS rules.
As such, concerns over the location of the storage are largely misplaced.
How To Open and Manage an Account
This might be one of the best things about opening an account with Lear Capital. The company makes it as easy as possible to open an account, fund it, and select the type of precious metal you want to open.
All you have to do is fill out a brief form on the website. From there, a representative from the company will contact you. Other review sites and individuals reported that this usually occurs within one business day.
This process is also quick if you are starting a new IRA or rolling over an existing one.
Adding money to a Lear Capital IRA is also relatively easy. All users have to do is connect their bank account.
From there, a user can begin to make purchases via an easy-to-manage online database. Users can then use this database to manage their accounts, make additional purchases, access tax information, and make sales as needed.
Staying Updated on the Performance of Your Investments
The online database has been reported as easy to use by most users. With just a few clicks, an individual can place an order and fund their IRA. Users can also use this database to monitor the performance of their IRA and compare it to other benchmarks.
With this information in hand, users can make decisions about the overall portfolio makeup of their IRA, as well as determinations about what may be the best purchase to make in the future.
This online information is instantaneous and can give you easy and immediate access to the performance of your portfolio. You'll also get quarterly statements physically mailed to your house.
This ensures that you are kept up-to-date about the performance of your IRA, and it makes it easy for you to track your IRA's performance.
Finally, keep in mind that there is a minimum investment associated with a Lear Capital account. As of today, that minimum investment is $7,500.
Withdrawing Money
Like any company, you can withdraw your money from your IRA at any time.
Lear Capital makes it easy to walk customers through this process, and users of the company's IRA report having a relatively easy time navigating the website or using the company's system to sell their gold or precious metals, then get their money back.
However, like all precious metal IRAs, you will have a bit of trouble getting your money. This is not specific to Lear Capital. Instead, it is emblematic of all gold, silver, and precious metal IRAs.
Gold IRAs are subjected to the same mandatory withdrawals, taxes, and penalties that come with any other IRAs.
Lear Capital can assist you in paying any penalties and taxes that are necessary for your withdrawals, and they can also walk you through making mandatory withdrawals. Customers report that the company was easy to work with in this regard.
The greater problem is that you cannot access your money as quickly as you can with other IRAs, like those of stocks or bonds. This is because of the nature of the product and not because of any issue specific to Lear Capital.
Keep in mind that precious metals are slightly less liquid than other financial instruments. Simply put, it takes more time to go through the process of selling your precious metal asset.
From there, you have to get the money in your Lear Capital account, then transfer the money to your account. This usually is not a long process, but it can be slightly longer than other financial transactions.
As such, if you need money immediately, a Lear Capital Gold IRA will not be the best choice for you. Fortunately, IRA withdrawals are usually planned well in advance. As a result, this is not a huge problem for most users.
View Advertising with a Grain of Salt
Like many other precious metal IRAs, Lear Capital advertises heavily, with some reports indicating that the company has aired as many as 200 commercials a day.
These commercials tend to air during daytime television and target seniors who may be interested in making late IRA investments.
Like most commercials, these tend to paint gold and silver IRAs in the best light possible, noting their strengths and advertising them as if they are the solution to all of your fiscal concerns.
There is nothing inherently wrong with advertising a product and highlighting its strengths.
However, consumers should keep in mind that, at best, a precious metal IRA should be a part of an overall advertisement strategy and not be ALL of their investments.
Furthermore, precious metal IRAs are not risk-free, and that is only stated in the fine print of these advertisements.
In other words, Lear Capital does the same thing that all other financial companies do in their advertisements: It tries to paint its product in the best light possible, even while papering over the total risks of its investments.
As such, you should view any such advertisement with a grain of salt.
Strengths of Lear Capital
There is no question that Lear Capital offers many benefits. This includes:
Areas of Concern for Lear Capital
The only real area of concern for Lear is that they only work with one depository in Delaware. If a consumer had previous negative experiences with that company, they'd be out of luck.
More serious is the concern that some had over the possibility of fraud or other incidents at that depository. However, as a properly insured organization, this is a relatively minor concern.
Furthermore, users should keep in mind that the advertisements aired by Lear Capital - like those aired by many other gold IRA companies - are not completely accurate.
However, this is a broader, industry-wide concern, and it would be difficult to find a gold or silver IRA company that didn't paint their investments in a positive light.
Final Thoughts
Lear Capital is a full-service IRA and financial company. They offer many options for investment and make it as easy as possible for someone to open a precious metal IRA.
The company has been praised by customers for its customer-service orientation, transparency in pricing, and ability to keep its customers informed.
You unquestionably have many options when it comes to opening a self-directed precious metal IRA, but there seems to be no doubt that Lear Capital is an excellent option for doing so.
Lear Capital is an acceptable company, but we do not recommend them.
There are much better options for investors looking to protect their wealth with a gold IRA, that we have written about extensively on this website.
You can get a Free Gold Investors Guide from our top gold and precious metals company recommendation by clicking the link above or you can read our article of the top companies we reviewed this year:
>> CLICK HERE to read our list of the Top Gold Investing Companies. <<
Or, if you like what you have read about Lear Capital, you can go to there website below:
I started BMOGAM Viewpoints as a way to compile all my views on investing in one place. I own my home, have some real estate, and own a few stocks like most people, but what really drives my interest in investing is I have a strong love of precious metals, especially gold.
