Get Smarter

Mr. FIA-X joins us again on the Fun With Annuities podcast for episode #69 this week to reveal the secrets of how the “annuity sausage” is made. His first appearance set records for listeners and viewers, and the demand for more of his insights was overwhelming.

Is an annuity affected by the stock market? The stock market and annuities are giant topics, and some are affected by the stock market, and some aren't. We're going to go through every single type of annuity, single premium, immediate annuities, deferred income annuities, QLACs, multi-year guarantee annuities, index annuities, variable annuities, all of them.

Today's topic is a good one. How renewal rates are the secret sauce, the secret formula, the secret to fixed indexed annuities. So let's do a little history lesson on fixed index annuities, the hottest selling product out there in annuity world. Indexed annuities were developed and introduced in 1995 as a CD type product.

So the question is, what's the difference between a pension and an annuity? Is a pension the same as an annuity? We're going to go into that. Short answer is they're both lifetime income guarantees, but let's dig further and do a side-by-side comparison of pensions and annuities so you can understand what's out there.

“Got guarantees?” should be the annuity industry's mantra to words because that's what they are. They're contractual guarantees. They're transfer of risk products, period. If you're a living, breathing, human-being with a bank account, then you're probably going to get pitched an indexed annuity by somebody because it's a good story.

The hottest “sounds too good to be true” and “best thing since sliced bread” product to hit the financial world in the past few years is the Fixed Index Annuity (FIA). Regardless of your specific financial goals, some agent or financial advisor will most likely pitch you this product…

There are many types of fixed annuities.