Guides
Every guide here is written by our team and reviewed for accuracy. We name trade-offs plainly, including the cases where an annuity is the wrong tool — and when one is right, we help you get the contract that actually fits.
Income planning
Add up the expenses you must cover every month — housing, food, insurance, utilities. Subtract Social Security and any pension. Whatever gap is left is the only part of your portfolio that needs a guarantee. Covering that gap first tends to make the rest of your investing decisions calmer, because a bad market year no longer threatens the grocery budget.
6 min read
Rollovers
A direct transfer between custodians keeps the tax deferral intact; taking a check yourself starts a 60-day clock and can trigger withholding. Confirm the receiving contract accepts qualified money, ask whether the surrender schedule restarts, and check how required minimum distributions will be calculated once payments begin.
5 min read
Contracts
Skip the brochure and read the surrender schedule, the crediting method, the rider fee table, the death benefit description, and the free-withdrawal provision. Those five sections determine what the contract costs you, what it pays you, and how hard it is to leave. If a salesperson cannot point to them quickly, that itself is information.
7 min read
Mistakes
Committing money you will need within the surrender period. Buying a lifetime income rider you never intend to turn on. Assuming an index-linked contract pays the full index return. And judging an offer by the bonus on the first-year statement instead of the income it produces a decade later.
4 min read
Taxes
Money that went in pre-tax comes out fully taxable as ordinary income. With after-tax money, each payment is split between a tax-free return of your principal and taxable earnings — the exclusion ratio. Gains withdrawn before 59½ can also carry a penalty. None of this is tax advice; run your specific case past a CPA.
5 min read
Shopping
Put the two contracts side by side on four lines: guaranteed annual income at your intended start date, total annual fees, surrender schedule length, and the issuer's financial strength ratings. Everything else is secondary. If one offer wins on a feature you will never use, it has not really won.
6 min read
Want one of these applied to your own numbers? Get your free annuity review — a straight answer on whether an annuity fits you, within one business day.