Independent Retirement Annuity: Your Pension Plan

Let's talk about independent retirement annuity, developing your retirement pension plan, and your personal pension plan. Slow down. Slow down and listen. Slow down in life. Slow down and look. Slow down and live. Slow down and enjoy. Slow down and love. Slow down and learn. I don't know where I got that. Where do you think I got that? I don't know. I digress, but I think I've driven home the point that life's short. Let's figure it out. Let's go slow.

‌By the way, annuity decisions should be slow. Buying an annuity should be slow. Your research should be slow. It should be on your terms and your timeframe. Part of that timeframe and terms would be the six annuity owner's manuals that I've written. You can download them for free by clicking on this link.

‌Social Security

‌All right. Your independent retirement annuity, your own personal pension plan. By the way, you already own an annuity. It's called Social Security. And I know you're saying, "I don't own an annuity because Social Security is not an annuity." Oh yeah, it is because it provides a lifetime income stream. And that income stream is a higher payment the older you are when you start it. When you start at age 70, it's higher than when you start at age 65. That's an annuity. It's a life expectancy transfer of risk lifetime income stream.

So, what you're, in essence, trying to do is say, "Hey, Stan, in addition to that other annuity I own, which is Social Security, what can I do? How can I develop that personal pension plan for me, my spouse, my partner, me and my kids, or me and my family?" The great news is that annuities are customizable so that you can create your pension plan.

‌Does the Money Go Poof?

‌In my opinion, one of the most misunderstood concepts of annuities, and the annuity industry has done a horrible job with this. Most people believe that if you're developing an annuity pension plan for yourself and you're buying an annuity, and you buy that annuity, getting the income stream, and then you die, what happens? Does the money go poof? Most people think money goes poof. "Why would I do that, Stan, give the money to the evil annuity company? Why would I ever do that?" Because that's not true.

‌That's only one way out of over 30 ways to structure the policy. That's called life only. Now, life only is the highest payment. Why? Because you're shouldering some of that risk. But when your Learjet hits the mountain, money goes poof. But you don't have to do it that way. You can structure it so that 100% of any unused money will go to your beneficiaries, either in a lump sum or in payments. We can show you both of those quotes using my annuity calculators. You'll love those, by the way, because we quote all carriers. But the bottom line is that you or your family will get the money. And in addition, the annuity company's on the hook to pay you for the rest of your life.

‌Single Life or Joint Life

‌One of the things you have to decide is whether you want to set up a pension plan just for your life or for you and someone else. Common sense would tell you that if it's just a single life, the payment will be higher from the annuity company. That is correct. If it's not, if it's joint life, that's fine, but the payment will be lower compared to single life. Now, if you set it up joint life, the younger of the two, and that's typically the female. The evil plot is that females will live longer than males, but the annuity company will primarily price that annuity structure on that younger female's life, even though it's joint life.

‌And when you start putting together your pension plan, your annuity pension plan, your retirement annuity plan, you need to think about bigger than yourself, "Okay, I want to take care of myself when I'm here, but do I want to take care of other people as well? Do other people care about the markets, growth, mutual funds, stocks, bonds, and ETFs as much as I do? Or do I want to set up a lifetime income stream pension that they can never outlive that's a lifetime string for them?" To me personally, that's my wife. My wife of 31 years doesn't care about the markets. And I've been doing this my whole life, whether with large firms on Wall Street or Stan The Annuity Man. She really is not interested in that, and that's fine. But what she does want is a guaranteed income stream when something happens to me.

‌Now, could I set it up to where the income stream would be higher if it were just on my life? Yeah, absolutely. But that's not what I'm thinking. What I'm thinking is, "All right. I might get a little bit lower payment or a lot lower payment depending on how I structure it, but I'm going to go ahead and do that to make sure that when I die, income stream continues uninterrupted and unchanged for her life." And then we also have it structured that if she passes away quickly after that, whatever money goes unused will go to my two daughters. So, we've transferred the risk totally. We transfer the risk for lifetime income streams for me and my wife, and then, any unused money goes to the daughters.

‌Most people, when they hear that you can do that with an annuity, are surprised. They think that when your Learjet hits the mountain, money goes poof. You don't have to do it like that. Most of the people out there that's worked very, very hard for their money, that's struggled, that's had down years, that's had good years, they didn't come from money, they didn't get an inheritance, and they weren't a trust fund baby. When they go to set up these pension annuities, they want to set it up so that there is that lifetime income stream, but they also want to make sure that their hard-earned money, every single dollar, goes to someone in the family.

‌Shop All Carriers

‌I'm going to go on a little bit of a rant here about getting quotes, using a calculator, and having agents with agendas to sell a specific product. When you go and structure these pension annuities, these annuity retirement income plans, you have to shop all carriers. You cannot go into it and say, "I really want it to be with this carrier." Or you cannot take someone's information and say, "This guy showed me this product, and this lady showed me this product, and they say it's the best one for me."

‌So, if an advisor says to you, "Hey, here's this annuity, this one annuity, this one company, this one product, and I want you to take a look at it because I think it's the best one for you," you have to demand them to show you more. You have to say, "I need to see three to five carriers, five to seven carriers," because annuities are commodity quotes. You quote them for the highest contractual guarantee.

‌The problem in the annuity world is currently in the Fixed Annuity world; agents can still go on incentive trips if they sell enough annuities. I don't think that's right. I don't think that we should be incentivized like that as agents to go on these trips. I don't go on these trips. In the securities industry, they shut that down a long, long time ago.

‌But don't let someone put a square peg into a round hole and say, "This is the one for you." Make them go to work. Make them shop all carriers. Or you can go to The Annuity Man, and we'll shop all carriers for you. That doesn't mean you have to buy it from us. We'd love for you to do that. But you could take that list to your brother-in-law, the agent you love, and say, "Hey, this was the best quote I got nationally. Can you get me that?" That's the way you have to shop for annuities. You've got to be stingy with your money. You worked hard with it. Get the highest quote.

‌Thank you for joining me today. Go to The Annuity Man, get my books, and listen to my podcast. I do one on all major platforms every week: Fun With Annuities. Hit the subscribe button on my YouTube Channel because videos come out every single day, Monday through Friday. And with that, I'll see you on the following blog.

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.