Since then you may have searched the internet high and low, or talked with some annuity advisors who all offer the perfect solution for your retirement concerns; and yet under closer scrutiny what you have been shown comes up short of the annuity sales pitch. You know the volatility of the market for most retirement assets is hard to stomach and you want **guarantees. You need pension-style income for life and the opportunity to have an increasing income to help protect against inflation. You also want an allocation that will allow your money to grow without risk; and ideally you’d like to maintain your assets, if possible, to pass to the next generation. So you’ve been looking at annuities. You talk with agent after agent and each of them has just the answer; they present the best annuity on the market — until you get to the next agent’s office. Each new agent tells you why his annuity is better than what the last guy just showed you. By this time, you are ready to pull your hair out. You’re not afraid to make a decision yet you just don’t want to make the wrong one. This is your retirement. You have saved your whole life for this opportunity. Many of you have now come to the conclusion that you wish these annuity pushers would admit – there is not one perfect annuity! If you are seeking income, growth and principal preservation combined with safety and **guarantees, it is likely that you are going to need more than just one annuity. Video Questions Answered About Annuity Income & Growth to Maintain Principal Are Annuities just for income? Should growth from annuities be part of sound retirement planning? How can folks build an annuity portfolio that creates Income & Growth while Maintaining Principal? Is laddering annuities a must? Is there a silver bullet such as the one or two perfect annuities? Are annuities built for different purposes and individual needs? What different types of annuities might be used in laddering? Should an annuity portfolio be part of a larger retirement portfolio with other investments? What are the key components that make up a balanced annuity portfolio? Safety, High rated Carriers. Initial income with future step-ups as a hedge for inflation Growth oriented annuities with a minimum floor and a probability of reasonable growth. Tax efficiency Efficient Wealth transfer Where, when and how?

Since then you may have searched the internet high and low, or talked with some annuity advisors who all offer the perfect solution for your retirement concerns; and yet under closer scrutiny what you have been shown comes up short of the annuity sales pitch. You know the volatility of the market for most retirement assets is hard to stomach and you want **guarantees. You need pension-style income for life and the opportunity to have an increasing income to help protect against inflation. You also want an allocation that will allow your money to grow without risk; and ideally you’d like to maintain your assets, if possible, to pass to the next generation. So you’ve been looking at annuities. You talk with agent after agent and each of them has just the answer; they present the best annuity on the market — until you get to the next agent’s office. Each new agent tells you why his annuity is better than what the last guy just showed you. By this time, you are ready to pull your hair out. You’re not afraid to make a decision yet you just don’t want to make the wrong one. This is your retirement. You have saved your whole life for this opportunity. Many of you have now come to the conclusion that you wish these annuity pushers would admit – there is not one perfect annuity! If you are seeking income, growth and principal preservation combined with safety and **guarantees, it is likely that you are going to need more than just one annuity. Video Questions Answered About Annuity Income & Growth to Maintain Principal Are Annuities just for income? Should growth from annuities be part of sound retirement planning? How can folks build an annuity portfolio that creates Income & Growth while Maintaining Principal? Is laddering annuities a must? Is there a silver bullet such as the one or two perfect annuities? Are annuities built for different purposes and individual needs? What different types of annuities might be used in laddering? Should an annuity portfolio be part of a larger retirement portfolio with other investments? What are the key components that make up a balanced annuity portfolio? Safety, High rated Carriers. Initial income with future step-ups as a hedge for inflation Growth oriented annuities with a minimum floor and a probability of reasonable growth. Tax efficiency Efficient Wealth transfer Where, when and how?

[continued] …that replacing your typical bond allocations in retirement with annuities can increase your likelihood of not running out of money in retirement dramatically. Annuities are like bonds – with benefits, they add the insurance component of lifetime income even if the principal account has been depleted. Everyone needs lifetime income whether that be from Social Security, pensions, or supplemented with some additional sources. Research done by the Society of Actuaries has shown that we are living longer than ever. In fact, on average 2 years longer than we were just 10 years ago – which is great news, right? Purchasing an annuity allows retirees to pool the risk of living too long across all annuity purchasers so they don’t have to save and invest as if they were going to live to 100; and they also don’t have to pay for an annuity designed for someone who will live to 100. They can purchase an annuity that is designed for their pooled life expectancy. Emotionally, most of us are attached to our savings and investment accounts. Not surprising since we have spent our whole lives building these accounts up and the thought of using any portion of those dollars to purchase an income stream seems distasteful, at best. However, studies indicate that most annuity owners soon lose their emotional attachment once their income payments begin. Knowing the type of annuity that can best reduce the fear of running out of money in retirement for each person is specific to each individual, and situation, and sometimes the correct answer is no annuity – while for others, it can be a combinations of annuities. If you are retired or nearing retirement, you would be doing yourself a disservice if you did not at least examine annuities for what they can do to secure your retirement.

[continued] …Brokers want to make a commission from selling you mutual funds or variable annuities and then collect trail fees from their assets under management. Insurance agents typically make one commission from an insurance sale including annuities. There’s not really that much difference, so why is there so much animosity? They all want your money! That is how they get paid. Brokers and insurance agents want to get your money for their products or management since they are in serious competition for your assets. Let’s face it, as the baby boomer generation enters retirement, more and more assets are moving from aggressive growth allocations into safer money options like annuities. Retirees face the challenge of turning their savings into lifetime income and they have to protect every dollar they can from the potential of market loss – yet many brokers don’t understand that mode of thinking. They surmise that even if you lose 30% this year, you’ll hopefully be able to get it back in the next three to four years because that is how markets should work. Most brokers are accumulation specialists. They try to tell you the hot stocks and funds to buy but they don’t really know how to properly create a balanced portfolio that protects and grows assets while **guaranteeing a retirement income that you cannot outlive. That being said, fixed index annuities are not the panacea for all your financial needs. They are wonderful for creating a secure income or providing reasonable safer growth – but they are not securities and they should not be compared unfairly to them. Unfortunately, most consumers that are transitioning into retirement have been conditioned to think in terms of accumulation, so they are more comfortable using terms from what they have learned throughout years of “investing”. The transition into annuities for income, limited growth, and safety typically means learning to talk more about the safer return OF your money with reasonable growth – not the sizable returns ON your money that is left at risk. Too many insurance agents try to talk like brokers and show off the “sizzle” of the 8% income rider growth formulas – even though it may not be the right annuity, it’s the easier “sell” because consumers can relate to the “growth guarantees”. So annuities get the occasional black eye when they are represented incorrectly by miss-informed or at times bad advisors who don’t really understand the value of educating themselves or their clients about the proper use of annuities. They are definitely not the White Hat Good-Annuity Guys®, they pretend to be! In our humble opinion, your best advisor choice is to work with a Fiduciary Registered Investment Advisor having extensive experience with securities and annuities, who takes a balanced, holistic approach to retirement planning.

A goal without a plan is mostly just a hope and a wish. So, do you have a well thought out retirement planning strategy or just a hope and wish for your retirement? We encourage the use of annuities to provide reliable income and safer growth for some portion of a well designed retirement plan. Does this mean we believe that every retirement plan should only have annuities?

We'll explain hybrid strategies work and who they’re best suited for.

Let's break down how annuities work, their pros and cons, and where they may (or may not) fit into your strategy.