When You Need Guarantees

If you’re looking for some measure of assurance in retirement in a financial world where few guarantees exist, a fixed annuity* may make sense. While there are many different annuities, one type — a fixed annuity — offers the security many people want.

Your Choice

Fixed annuities are available through insurance companies, banks and other financial firms. They come in two flavors: immediate and deferred. Both guarantee a minimum interest rate, which is usually different from the introductory rate and is often higher.

With fixed deferred annuity contracts, you get the guaranteed interest rate credited to your account balance, and eventually will receive a regular payment based on your rate and annuity contract length. Immediate annuities begin, as the name implies, right away, and base payments on a credited interest rate and contract length.

Payments can last for a fixed term, ranging from a few years to many, and they can even last your lifetime (usually for an extra fee).

Your Funding

Historically, annuity owners typically didn’t have a workplace retirement plan or wanted to put away more money than their plans allowed for retirement. That’s changing. Increasingly, 401(k) providers are working with other financial firms to offer plan participants the opportunity to convert all or part of their balance to an annuity.

Your age, whether you have another retirement plan and other factors can affect whether contributions are tax-deductible or made after-tax, but payments of the earnings are always taxable as ordinary income, making your after-tax net susceptible to changing tax rates. Growth is tax-deferred during the accumulation phase.

There are other types of investments that can potentially provide higher retirement income, but very few that offer these guarantees. Do your homework to learn if a fixed annuity is right for you.

*Fixed annuity contracts guarantee a minimum credited interest. For immediate fixed annuity contracts, annuitants receive a fixed income stream based, in part, on the interest rate guarantee at the time of purchase. For fixed deferred annuity contracts, the insurer credits a fixed interest rate to contributions in the accumulation phase and pays a fixed income payment when annuitized. Annuity products are not FDIC-insured, and their guarantees are backed solely by the claims-paying ability of their issuing life insurance company.