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Today’s topic is a good one, a big one, an important one. What is suitable and appropriate when buying an annuity? It's detailed. I'm going to go through the reasons we have to go through the application process and ask you. There's a method behind the madness, as they say.

Today, we're talking about annuity returns potential versus contractual unicorns chasing the butterflies or the contractual realities.

The question is, what happens to an annuity if the stock market crashes? Are fixed index annuities good against a stock market crash? What if the insurance company backing it goes under? What's your protection? So let's take them one at a time.

Okay. So how much money do you need? That's a loaded question because how much money do you need from the standpoint of how much money do you need to work with The Annuity Man®, the minimum, and then how much money you need if you need to put in an income floor, also, if you need to fill in a gap for income, et cetera.

I really enjoyed having co-host Dan Prescher on the Fun With Annuities podcast #77 because his organization falls in line with my saying that “There’s no U-Hauls behind hearses!” In other words, you can’t take it with you, so enjoy life while you can.

Today, we're going to talk about the benefits that only annuities offer, and there's two unique benefits that we're going to talk about and go into detail and why it matters and why I think it's important as you consider an annuity in your portfolio.

I have come up with the appropriate nickname for John Lenz - The Annuity Mechanic. He can fix any situation, and he has seen everything over his 40-year career. As I said during the podcast, if there was such a thing as an "Annuity Room"

The question is, how does the economy affect annuity rates? That's a fundamental question to a very detailed answer because annuities are not all the same. The economy affects annuities differently. How does the economy affect annuity rates and annuities in general? Well, let's look at a myriad of ways.

Shopping for annuities. First of all, understand that regardless of what you hear from an agent or an advisor, annuities are commodity products. There's not one annuity that's better than the other annuity, et cetera.The first thing you need to understand is that there's not a one size fits all product, even though there are many people out there promoting that they have that.

So, annuity companies, how do they make money? There's a reason that annuity companies have significant buildings and that they do very, very well. Why? It's because they know when we're going to die. Property and casualty companies, however, don't know when the hurricane's going to hit. They don't know when the tornado's going to hit.

The question you have asked, which I'm going to answer quickly, is, “are annuities FDIC insured?”

So what is a cost basis on an annuity? I'm going to talk about the cost basis of all different types of annuities, the deferred annuities, the income annuities, and how that affects the annuity you're coming from an annuity that you're going to.

We're going to talk about laddering investments and protecting your principal all at the same time. You need to understand the contract before you buy anything, right? The only urgency is to understand, not the urgency to buy.

John Olsen is one of the handful, over the long history of annuities that I can honestly refer to as "Annuity Royalty." For anyone who knows John or has read his work, it's indisputable.

What happens when your annuity provider goes bust? Can you lose money in your annuity? Does the state ensure fixed annuities? I understand the fears that you might have about the safety of your annuity. We're going to cover it all, and we're going to start by talking about state guarantee funds.