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Guaranteed Lifetime Income Products
Hi, I'm Stan The Annuity Man, America's annuity agent. You own an annuity for what it will do, not what it might do. You own it for the contractual guarantees only. Never buy an annuity for the hypothetical, theoretical, back tested, projected, agent hopeful return scenarios, meaning juice numbers, because that never happens. It never ever comes true, and I'm right a hundred percent of the time about that. So, let's talk about guaranteed lifetime income products.
Okay, so why are you looking for guaranteed lifetime income products? I'm assuming your advisor said, "You don't need an annuity. You can just take 4% out of your portfolio." Or "You don't need an annuity. You can just buy bonds, and you can just peel off the interest from the bonds." Hey, there's nothing wrong with those strategies, period. There is nothing wrong at all, except that the 4% rule strategy isn't guaranteed; you still have to have growth, but a lot of times, that works. Bonds cannot be compared to annuities, in my opinion. I know a lot of pundits out there say bonds and annuities are the same. They're not. In my background with Morgan Stanley and UBS, a long, long time ago, I used to manage some bonds, and I do not feel that bonds and annuities should be compared.
Unique Benefit Proposition
So, what's the unique benefit proposition that only annuities offer? It's this: annuities will pay income for the rest of your life regardless of how long you live, period. Now, if I'm czar of the annuity industry, if I'm Stan The Annuity Man, I run the annuity industry. Whoever the president is that appoints me as "Annuities Czar," then that's what I tell the public. That's the value proposition that most people are looking for, which is that lifetime income stream guarantee that they get from their pension; if they're so fortunate, social security, everybody loves that annuity. You can't hate all annuities and love your Social Security payments. Nod your head. So, you're looking for guaranteed income products. That's where annuities come into play. Let's look at the customization of those to fit your specific situation.
Customizing Your Quotes
When you're customizing your quotes and looking for lifetime guaranteed income solutions, it's important to understand that you have to ask two primary questions. Number one, what do you want the money to contractually do? And then, secondly, when do you want those contractual guarantees to start? For example, you might say, "You know what? I want to start income in three, four, or seven years from now." Then what you're going to do is go to our site. We will run the quotes for you and find the highest contractual guarantees for that specific quote parameter.
And understand that quotes are like a gallon of milk. They last about every 7 to 10 days. You have to re-quote them like a gallon of milk expires every 7 to 10 days. That's a good thing to put in the back of your head unless you lock in that quote and go forward with the application process. In other words, if I run a quote for you and send it to you, and two weeks later, you call them and say, "That's the quote I want," it won't be valid. So, that doesn't mean there's an urgency to buy an annuity. You just need to know the rules on how these things work. Annuities are commodity products, especially lifetime income guarantee products. Things change. You have to quote all carriers to ensure you get the highest contractual guarantee.
What in Life Is Guaranteed?
So, what in life is guaranteed? Let me think about that for a second. Is your marriage guaranteed? I'm talking to myself. No, my kids are fine. They're just a little wandering out there, trying to find themselves. Nothing in life's guaranteed. Except for lifetime income guarantees with annuities. Now, I know the conspiracy theorists out there are saying, "Come on, Stan. What happens if New York Life goes out of business?" Or some big company like that goes out of business? My answer to that is very simple. If that happens, you and I are in the grocery store's bread aisle fighting over the bad loaf of bread. I'm punching you in the throat for it. There's anarchy, there's chaos.
Annuity companies aren't smarter than banks; they're just more regulated than banks. So, from a Claims Paying Ability standpoint, annuities are pretty darn safe. You should always look at the Claims Paying Ability of the carrier, but at the end of the day, the question is: what's guaranteed in life? Lifetime income stream with annuities. Which leads me to an interesting story.
There's No ROI Until You Die
A person called the other day and was shopping for Immediate Annuity quotes, and of course, we ran that using our proprietary annuity calculators. We ran the quotes, we ran it with all carriers, and he goes, "Well, that looks pretty good. What's the return on investment on that? What's the ROI?" And I had the saying, "There's no ROI until you die," Because when you die, when your Learjet hits the mountain, we can run that return-on-investment number for you. In fact, I can come to your funeral and present it to the family in a song format. If you want to do that, it would be really good. I'll do it, acapella. I digress.
My point is that it's a transfer of risk. Lifetime income products with annuities are risk transfer products because the annuity company is on the hook to pay for the rest of your life, regardless of how long you live. So, getting back to it, what is guaranteed in life? Not much. Except for lifetime income guarantees with annuities.
Hey, I appreciate you hanging in there with me. I recommend going to a video I made because it correlates with our conversation. It talks about lifetime income benefit riders versus annuitization. Which is better? Should you get a rider that's not annuitized? That's a withdrawal benefit. Or should you look at annuitization products? That video is the mother load because I go through every single thing, and you can watch it by clicking on this link.
Now, if you want quotes, please go to our site, and you can sign up there. We will send you the quotes with no obligation and no cost. Another thing with no obligation and no cost is my wonderful books. You can download them for free to get educated on all things annuities because there's never an urgency to buy an annuity. The urgency is for you to understand them in full and make the decision on your terms and on your timeframe.
Lastly, please subscribe to my YouTube channel, just because I like to see the numbers go up. It's a vain thing, but I want it to just keep growing. But I appreciate you doing that. I am putting out a video weekly, Monday through Friday, until the cows come home, and I haven't seen them. I’ll see you next time.
Never forget to live in reality, not the dream, with annuities and contractual guarantees! You can use our calculators, get all six of my books for free, and most importantly book a call with me so we can discuss what works best for your specific situation.