With receptionists answering more than 1,200 incoming calls every day, it’s always all hands on deck in Annuity Ops.

Charged with helping our producers understand all the requirements for getting a contract issued and money transferred to fund the business, as well as responding to questions and facilitating any changes on existing contracts, our Annuity Ops team carries a heavy load. On top of all that, they make sure producers hold the right licenses in the right states and are properly trained on the ins and outs of the products they sell.

Basically, Annuity Ops is in charge of making it as easy as possible for our producers to write business by providing world-class service and support every single step of the way.

Often considered the “colorful” team, AE Creative is a full-fledged, in-house ad agency of award-winning graphic designers, web marketing specialists, video producers, copywriters and much, much more.

With the ability to handle everything from logo design to e-marketing solutions and custom video production, the AE Creative team helps producers establish their brands and build credibility among their target markets.

This talented team also helps build AE’s own corporate marketing efforts and employee communications. Plus, our top-flight event planners are experts at pulling together events in Topeka, across the country and around the world for anywhere from five to 500 people.

Constantly pushing to think bigger and create better, AE Creative takes the art of creativity to a new level.

The professionals on our Annuity Marketing team don’t just help our producers get by, they help them get better.

In AE’s carefully crafted culture where top producers are expected to share ideas, strategies and techniques, our annuity marketers stay busy sharing coaching, ideas and best practices. Whether through phone calls, texts, emails and even snail mail special deliveries, the members of this team are constantly in contact with our producers, searching for new ways to help them improve their practices and, more importantly, find financial strategies that incorporate competitive products for their clients.

And the producers who aren’t working with AE yet? We’re talking to them, too, helping them understand why it makes sense to work with AE.

From helping producers learn the basics of life insurance to sharing easy-to-implement strategies to introducing them to new markets, the AE Life team brings new “life” and added value to our producers and their clients.

This integrated team tackles every step in the process of getting applications submitted and approved. That includes scrubbing the application, ordering medical exams and records, seeing the app through the underwriting process and helping ensure a client receives the best possible offer.

Helping our producers find innovative ways to add life insurance to their practice and transferring the back-office work from their shoulders to AE’s has made AE Life one of the top-producing IMO Life divisions in the country.

As AE’s own media division, Retirement HQ works with AE insurance agents and financial advisors across the country to help make their voices heard and generate client leads.

Conducting market research, negotiating media contracts, placing media buys and writing, recording and editing radio shows, TV commercials and ad campaigns are all in a day’s work for these broadcast professionals. They’re constantly on their toes, providing show hosting, coaching, recording and full campaign tracking services for participating AE producers.

By providing turnkey media services for our producers at the local market level, RHQ helps shed light on our producers so they can grow their practices.

AE’s numbers people, the Finance team runs all of the normal business accounting functions — processing payroll, invoicing clients, depositing payments, tax accounting — but that’s only the tip of the iceberg.

A typical day in Finance consists of gathering, inputting and calculating a lot of data to keep a finger on the pulse of our business. This team takes financial reporting to the next level by measuring our producers’ life insurance and annuities production and overall profitability. Better understanding our producers’ practices helps us measure how AE’s services impact their bottom lines.

Accounting for every dollar that comes in and goes out of AE is serious business, but our Finance pros never compromise quality for quantity.

Our producers try hard to help their clients achieve their goals, and to work within the laws and regulations governing the industry. But with ever-changing insurance laws and a variety of regulations that may differ from state to state, staying on top of the latest best practices can be difficult and complicated.

That’s where the AE Compliance team comes in. Our in-house team helps protect AE and our producers from regulatory risk by reviewing advertising and marketing materials to make sure no lines are crossed. They also make sure our producers get the latest details on industry regulations.

Our Compliance team keeps AE and our producers informed so we can continue to help producers build their businesses, and so our producers can continue to help clients achieve their financial goals.

From the conference room to the desktop and everything in between, if it plugs into a wall or picks up a signal, the AE Technology and Innovation team knows how it works and, more importantly, how to fix it.

Besides maintaining AE phones, computers, servers, printers, scanners and video conferencing systems, this team helps develop custom-built applications, manage purchased applications and troubleshoot programs for AE employees and producers.

The pros in Technology and Innovation manage a cloud infrastructure responsible for hosting a multitude of web applications — built by the AE Programming team — for both AE employees and producers.

Everyone deserves a personalized investment strategy fit for their retirement. It just makes sense. At AE, our Securities team helps ensure our advisors can make that happen for their clients.

The Securities team teaches our advisors about different investment options and strategies for their clients and keeps them up to date on best practices, thought leadership and new ideas from other top advisors in the industry. Then, they help our advisors construct, propose, deliver and service those personalized investment strategies to clients.

Detail-oriented and time-consuming work? Yep. But it’s all worth it knowing our advisors are confident they can help clients live the futures they’ve worked so hard for.

From recruiting and training to rewarding and retaining, the Employee Initiatives team helps take care of AE employees.

That means much more than ensuring AE employees have access to great benefits to take care of themselves and their families. Through organizing on-site training and education programs, as well as charitable activities and volunteer opportunities to help AE give back to our community, our Employee Initiatives team helps foster professional and personal growth.

Sometimes, human resources departments can get a bad rep for being the keeper of rules. And if the situation warrants, our team can bring the hammer down, but primarily these folks are focused on preserving the great culture at AE and adding value to the company’s most important resource — its people.