Gold Ira Companies: Comparison Ratings Of The Best Providers

Our company listings are based on BBB, Trustlink & Business Consumer Alliance scores for many of the top rated and best-known Gold IRA providers.

Bookmark this page of consumer protection ratings and phone numbers for your reference.

Where you’re ready to begin your comparison research, this reference chart can help you quickly contact your favorite gold ira companies. Interested in how we rank our list?

2019 Consumer Protection Ratings: Last Updated On 10/07/2019

How should I assess the best gold ira companies?

Here are several main factors to consider when evaluating offers from American gold and silver providers:

1. Track Record and Reputation of the Gold Company Or Broker

Choosing a IRA custodian with an excellent track record and reputation is paramount.

The highest ratings possible are A+ for the Better Business Bureau, 5-star ratings TrustLink and AAA for the BCA.

Individual customer reviews are also available on each site. Using these impartial sources to guide your judgement is probably a great way to choose among reputable organizations. Any good vendor should place a premium on customer service and your investment preferences.

2. Upfront and Reasonable Individual Retirement Account Fees

Don’t let hidden fees lower your returns; make sure any gold IRA company states all its account fees upfront. Standard annual charges in the precious metals industry are $250 for storage and administration fees. It’s also best to avoid percentage based fees, as these could be disastrously high for those with larger investment amounts.

3. Gold Storage Safety

A good custodian stores their customers’ physical gold and other assets in a licensed and secured depository such as the Delaware Depository, the largest depository in the United States outside of New York. The Delaware Depository is also a licensed depository of the CME Group as well as the ICE Futures US, and backed by a billion dollar all-in insurance coverage policy. (See also the new Texas Gold Depository, currently exclusively available to Noble Gold.)

4. Generous Company Buyback Policies

Easy to buy, hard to sell; don’t let it happen to you.

Paper returns are worthless unless they are able to be realized. Investors should be assured that they would be able to quickly and easily liquidate their gold holdings at prevailing market prices.

What is a good buyback policy?

A company that commits to buying back their clients’ gold or silver at the highest spot price of a particular trading day, with no additional fees.

5. Sincere ‘Trust Signals’ From The Gold Provider

We have noticed that a number of gold ira companies either “hide” behind a big corporate wall, or even worse, attempt to obfuscate who the people are behind the company.

As in any “relationship” in life, you’ll want to look for someone giving you the right trust signals:

• Do they use and publish the names of their CEO/President on their company website?
• Do the gold ira companies post articles from their executives demonstrating expertise?
• Have their executives or representative published articles on other financial websites (e.g. Bloomberg Radio, thestreet.com, etc.) or made appearances at reputable financial institutions?
• Does their company information match the information on the consumer protection site(s)?

For this reason we tend to prefer some of the small outfits that have a more personal relationship with their clients and are willing to use email to maintain relationships with their account holders.

6. Deep Gold Expertise Exhibited By The Provider or Firm

A lot of American gold ira companies have jumped on the investment band wagon in the past several years to try to take advantage of an increase in investors’ desire to add gold and silver to their portfolios. However, not all gold ira companies are created equal and have the same degree of expertise. Sometimes large companies want to make it look like they have deep expertise, but they have only recently increased their business in silver and gold.

Those that have been in the precious metals ira business for a long time at some level are likely to be able to provide a wealth of genuine information at no cost for the benefit of not only customers but anyone interested in gold and silver. This generous educational material not only shows their expertise, but also demonstrates the depth of their commitment to helping customers understand the markets and protect their investments with gold ira companies.

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Work With Top Gold IRA Companies By Carefully Evaluating Your Gold Broker or IRA Provider

It is not surprising then, that in such uncertain times, that more and more people are looking at various methods of both safeguarding and growing their wealth (or money/income), particularly those who are at or nearing retirement age. Gold is one such American investment avenue that has become increasingly popular, and the goal of this site is to provide our readers with the best possible information on the various questions that people have concerning investing in gold. We will be looking at these elements and providing other tips on what to look for:

1. What is a gold investment company?
2. What should I be looking for when evaluating reliable gold ira companies?

Exactly what is a gold company?

In order for us to explain what exactly a gold investment company is, we first have to be clear about what exact method of investment we are looking for. Gold investment and gold ira companies can be a generic catch-all term so we have to break it down to specifics prior to answering that question. Before evaluating gold ira companies, investors have to be sure which method of gold investment they are interested in first when working with their chosen firm. Basically, there are four primary methods that an investor has at his or her disposal to answer the question: why invest in gold? They are:

1. Gold Coins and Bullion

A simple and the most direct method where an investor directly purchases physical gold, where the assets are mostly in the form of coins and bullion. An investor can either buy directly and store their purchase on their own (a simple safe deposit box will usually suffice), or they can purchase gold via a self-directed IRA, known as a ‘precious metals IRA’ or ‘Gold IRA’. In the second case, the funds in said IRA (which can be funded via rollovers or transfers from other retirement accounts such as TSPs, 401(k)s, or other traditional IRAs) are used to purchase investment metals from a Gold IRA custodian and dealer, and although the investor owns the gold directly, under IRS regulations, the investor cannot physically possess the gold and it would be stored with the custodian. When investing in physical coins and bullions, investors should ensure that the gold they purchase is of high quality, at least 99.5% (24 karats) pure.

If investing via a IRA, the gold is ensured to be of high quality as that is mandated and approved under IRS regulations. Hence, in this case a investment company would refer to qualified providers. Examples of approved coins that meet the high purity standards of the IRS are the American Gold Eagle, American Silver Eagle, Canadian Gold Maple Leaf and others. Likewise for gold bars and silver bars, they must be of very high purity to meet the purity qualifications of the IRS. (Note: Platinum and palladium are also approved metals, although gold and silver coins and bars are far more popular and common.)

2. Gold Exchange Traded Funds (“ETFs”)

An indirect method as the gold is owned by the ETF and not the investor. The investor instead purchases shares in the fund, and the value of the shares would trade in accordance with the market price of gold. Each share usually corresponds to 1/10 of an ounce of gold. Investors can purchase shares directly from the ETF or via a traditional IRA. In this scenario, the investment company would refer to a specific gold ETF; popular ETFs include names such as SPDR Gold Trust and iShares Gold Trust.

3. Gold Exchange Traded Notes (“ETNs”)

An even more indirect method for investing in gold and silver, and also a somewhat more complex investment type. ETNs are a type of debt security traded on exchanges in which returns are linked to a market index or some other benchmark, in the case of gold ETNs, the benchmark would be the price of gold. It is worth highlighting that unlike gold ETFs, the issuer of the ETNs does not actually own any physical gold and such issuances are reflected as unsecured debt obligations on the issuer’s books. But unlike traditional debt instruments such as bonds, ETNs do not pay out regular interest payments and are assets that trade more like stocks. The investment company in this case would then be the issuer of the gold ETN; investors should note that as there is no physical gold involved, investors are directly exposed to the counterparty risk of the issuer. For more information on ETNs in general, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, FINRA, has issued a relevant investor alert.

4. Gold Miner Stocks

This is the simple method of investing in equity issuances of gold miners. If choosing to utilize this indirect method, investors should perform the necessary due diligence on each specific mining company, as each would have different profiles such as operating costs, production levels, and future mining projects. Generally speaking, gold miner stocks are more volatile compared to physical assets as they represent a leveraged investment. In this method, the investment company would refer to the individual mining company.

Now that we’ve broken down what exactly a ‘gold investment company’ can refer to, you may be wondering which method is most appropriate for you. In our view, investing your assets via a Gold IRA is the most beneficial as it allows for direct ownership of physical gold as well as favorable tax treatments. For more, kindly refer to our guide on ‘Gold IRA Investing’. Hence, in the next section of this guide we will be focusing on the criteria for choosing the best gold ira companies and custodians.

What should I be looking for when evaluating my options?

From here on out, we will be referring to Gold IRA custodians when talking about various American IRA providers of offering retirement vehicles, as we believe that a precious metals ira is potential good choice for your foray into investing. When evaluating gold companies, there are 4 main criteria that we look at, namely:

1. Strong Ratings From Impartial Gold Sources

In any industry, reputation and experience is a key factor to look at. In the information age of today, peer reviews are one of the best ways to obtain first-hand information on the reliability and trustworthiness of a gold dealer. In the case of Gold IRA companies, we like to check the custodians we are evaluating with three impartial sources: the Better Business Bureau, the Business Consumer Alliance, and TrustLink. When selecting a custodian, we encourage all potential investors to cross-reference their potential gold ira companies with the three databases above. The highest rating possible on the Better Business Bureau would be A+ or a 5-star rating for the latter two. Learn if your potential investment company has managed to achieve the highest rating on all three, that would be a highly positive indicator as to its reputation and track record. Potential retirement account or retirement plan customers can also further scrutinize customer reviews on gold ira companies for a deeper picture.

2. Look For Favorable Gold Company Policies

Hidden fees have the potential to really diminish your net returns on your retirement investment, depending on the amount of the fees. Select one of the gold ira companies that are upfront on the fees they offer. Looking for gold ira companies that have plans with fees in the neighborhood of $250 per year for your account, for both administrative and storage fees, is a good starting point. Especially, be on the watch for providers charging a percentage, rather than flat fee, which can quickly accumulate beyond an acceptable limit. Sometimes companies offer free services as well, so inquire with your potential vendor about services they can offer free of charge or bundle with other plans.

3. Make Sure Your Preferred Gold Broker Has Ample Storage Safety

Whenever there are physical assets, there is always danger of theft. Therefore it is paramount that a good IRA custodian stores their customer’s holdings in a licensed and secured depository. A good example of one such depository is the Delaware Depository, the largest depository in the United States outside of New York, which is also a licensed depository of the CME Group as well as the ICE Futures US, backed by a billion dollar all-in insurance coverage policy. Potential customers should always ensure that their Gold IRA custodian only stores investments in depositories with a similar reputation.

4. Ask Your Preferred Broker About Ease of Liquidation

Many commodities are easy to buy, but hard to sell to cash or money equivalents. To take an example, most agree that diamonds are easily bought, but their resale value is often extremely low compared to their retail value, so they tend not to be a reliable store of long term wealth preservation. Of course, in the case of diamonds, this is because of collusion within the industry to keep supply artificially low, and further, diamonds are not a publicly traded commodity. Nevertheless, the fact remains; the ease of liquidating your investment into cash or other form of money is a major factor to consider before investing those assets with any of the gold ira companies on this list. In the case of gold and silver, investors should be confident that they will be able to liquidate their investment at prevailing market prices if they agree to do so. Hence, investors should choose a Gold IRA custodian with a generous buyback policy to help transfer risk from being solely yours; an ideal custodian should be committed to buying back any client’s gold at the highest spot price of a particular trading day, with no fees attached.

More and more investors are investing in gold to protect and safeguard their wealth and money to lower their overall risk – are you doing the same?

If you are serious about adding a gold or silver IRA (or even platinum or palladium) and part of a comprehensive plan for your portfolio, we invite you to take a look around this site; we have many detailed articles, guides, and resources to help you make an informed choice for your own financial goals and needs.