You just made my day

If you get a "guaranteed " monthly return and the initial investment grows minimally each year and the gross market value is left to your heirs- I am satisfied! (please, no snide or criticizing comments. I am retired, satisfied and don't need the hassle). Just my opinion.

So send your social security check or any pensions you have back. They are annuities. This is just wrong. Annuities have a very important place in retirement planning when used correctly. The only product that can guarantee lifetime income. I have several and am VERY satisfied. I also have several million in the stock market. Totally different goals for each. When another 2008 happens, I will be fine because I have enough guaranteed income to cover my bills. How will you be doing? You can’t earn anything in bonds anymore, so annuities are actually pretty attractive as an alternative. Read or listen to anything by Dr Wade Pfau and you might change your mind.

We have no choice about social security but if we could have opted out 50 years ago would have.

Annuities are very important to the people who sell them. How else can they live the life they have gotten accustomed too.

Those are good stocks along with Carolina Power.

TIAA Creff
 

I worked all my career for higher education. They shared a retirement program under TIAA-Cref. Early on, that was only available to people in higher ed. I put part of my retirement money into safer lower earning annuity and part into riskier mutual funds. Very glad I did as my income is now about what it was while I was working.

TIAA is not available to the public. It is a low cost investment fund with billions under management. It is worth investigating online.

Annuities are just one option among many available for retirement income streams. One shoe size doesn't fit all but it might just fit you if you are looking for guaranteed income, perhaps for life, in retirement. Today's annuities are multi-faceted - unlike a few years back when annuity options were extremely limited. A local annuity broker who specializes in annuity offerings, among other retirement financial vehicles, is Parady Financial. Why not give them a call and learn from the experts what is available, and at what cost, etc etc?

There are places where annuities make sense. If your total portfolio risk can be lowered by annuitizing a portion (and your willing to accept the risk of croaking early) you can dial up your risk in the remainder of your portfolio and improve your returns. This also becomes a much easier premise if you don’t need to count on leaving a legacy. 😊

Essentially, you’re betting the insurance company that you’re going to live longer than they think you will. They take your money, invest it and give it back to you in dribs and drabs (with steep penalties if you want to withdraw more than the contract states).

Annuities are such terrible investments that the minute the government passed a law specifying that financial professionals had to act in their clients best interest, annuity sales fell off a cliff.

In 2016, new rules were passed by the Department of Labor that stated that brokers have to act as fiduciaries. That means they had to put their clients’ best interest ahead of their own.

Needless to say, there’s not a lot of incentive for him to put you in a low-cost index fund.

As soon as the fiduciary rule was passed in 2016, sales of annuities fell 8%. They slid an additional 18% in the first quarter of 2017.

Sales of variable annuities, which are the worst of the worst, crashed 22% in 2016.

:popcorn::popcorn::popcorn:

Annuities are considered to be insurance products and therefore are sold by insurance agents of insurance companies. Fixed annuities are very simple, similar to bank CDs but with deferral of interest taxation.

I'm still waiting for Parady to call me back and provide a copy of one of their annuity contracts.

Who would agree to a contract that the other party won't provide a copy of before you agree to sign?

We HIGHLY RECOMMEND - Liz at TB Financial in Fruitland Park. EXCELLENT SERVICE AND TOP EXPERT in ALL ANNUITY PRODUCTS. We purchased our single premium annuities with her several years ago and are extremely pleased.
Call them for an appointment: (352) 350-1161 She also runs regular ANNUITY 101 SEMINARS on general info on the variety of annuities out there for you to pick from.

He does have a wonderful rep of giving people the best annuity he possibly can that makes him a lot of money.

In other words he thinks we should all have an annuity.

"extremely pleased" with what rate of return???

To some people the return does not matter but safety is all they care about.

That is how most annuities are sold.