[Ski Bum]

To be clear, I am not defending annuities. They are typically a bad investment compared to other options. It's always the "compared to other options" that makes the difference. Here are a few best case scenarios where you could consider an annuity.

We are in a bear market, and you want to protect some principle for a needed expense in a future date. Since the original investment is guaranteed, the commission may seen like a reasonable insurance policy. Of course, cash acts much the same way, but you sacrifice any chance for the upside.

As a small part of your overall retirement. During a downturn, you could draw off of the guaranteed principle instead of taking losses on your growth/income portfolio.

Here's my last example from personal experience. Upon my grandfather's death, my grandmother gifted each grandchild a $25,000 annuity. We were all relatively young, and understood there was a severe penalty for withdrawal before 59 1/2. Well, I just did the calculation on that annuity now, 30 years later. The rate of return is 6.6%. That's below the market average, but it was safe when gifted, had a mechanism to discourage cashing out, and taught us all a lot about investing (I think that was my grandmother's entire point).