I just talked to my brother and he's talking to his advisor (not broker!) at the end of this month. He's going to look it over, maybe she'll listen to a professional and/or my brother. It does have a 60 day back out period - so hopefully we can get this mess sorted out.
The only advisors who can be trusted are fee-only fiduciaries. Fee-only means they cannot earn back door commissions. Otherwise you're going to get some form of a sales presentation. The "free" advisors are all in the business of either drumming up transactions (to earn fat commissions) or they want to be your asset manager (charging you quarter after quarter). You don't need an asset manager to percentage rebalance index funds once in a while.
I would read the actual prospectus to be sure that there's indeed a 60 day free look period. Don't put it past Mr. Advisor to lie and when there's perhaps only a 2 week period to get out. These guys will say / do anything to make the sale. We already know that this advisor is a crook because he sold her that thing.
With 3.8% in annual fees she will lose 32.11% in just 10 years. She will lose 53.9% in 20 years. These are just mathematical facts.
By comparison, index funds have expense ratios of 0.05% to 0.07% per year. There is NO comparison. Retail variable annuities are absolute garbage.
And with annuities, future gains are taxed at the higher ordinary income tax rate. And heirs get NO stepped up cost basis with index annuity gains.
Wealth Manager did a study called "Photo Finish". The so-called "advantage" of annuity tax deferral is actually a tax disadvantage. It's not what you make, but what you get to keep. So you lose even MORE money with annuities.
BTW some of the people on Bogleheads are biased. Definitely some annuity salesmen on there pretending to be consumers. Still others on BH praise immediate annuities. I can debunk these products all day as consistently inferior to a low risk mix of bonds and stocks.