What Is A Good Rate For A Fixed Annuity?

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What is a good rate for a fixed annuity? Pretty interesting, loaded question that I'm getting

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ready to hammer, knock the cover off the ball. As I say, hi there, I'm Stan the Annuity Man,

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America's Annuity Agent, licensed in all 50 states, pioneer of contractual guarantees only,

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and also the tallest agent in the country. I'm just going

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to throw that marker down, Big C behind the camera. That's,

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you know, if there's a taller one out there, then they're just not selling anything.

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So yeah, we are licensed in all 50 states and Puerto Rico, and everyone in the building

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and my home office in Las Vegas, Nevada, they're all licensed as well, but not on commission,

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which is very unique. They're not hammers looking for nails. So, with all that preface being said,

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we're going to talk about what's a good rate for a fixed annuity after this.

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So, what is a good rate for a fixed annuity? Loaded question with many answers. Why,

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Stan the Annuity Man? It's because there's many types of fixed annuities. So, what is a good rate?

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So, let's go through the fixed annuity types. What is a good rate for a MYGA, multi-year guarantee

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annuity? That's the annuity industry version of a CD. You can go to my site, you can see all the—see

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all the best fixed rates on the planet, and you can filter them by duration: one year, two year,

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three year, four year, five years. So, what's the best rate? You can see that on my site. It does

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change. So, you know that's just a fixed rate, just like a CD. Now, with MYGAs, we look at

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the carrier from the standpoint of can they back up the claim for the specific period of time that

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you're looking to lock in. So, a three-year, we might say A-minus instead of an A+ if an A-minus

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is highest because we believe, and I'm putting my license on the line, that they're going to be able

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to back up that claim. So, that—what's the best rate for fixed annuity for a MYGA? That's it. You

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can go to our site and find that every single day. You can look them up and shop and all that stuff.

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Now, what's the best rate for a fixed annuity that pays lifetime income? That would be a qualified

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longevity annuity contract, a deferred income annuity, a single premium immediate annuity.

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These are lifetime income products. These are pension products. So, what's the best fixed rate?

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The answer to that, the rate is the payment. What is the payment going to be for the rest of your

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life, or if you set it up joint life, rest of your lives? Same thing applies for what's called income

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riders that are attached to, in our case, index annuities for lifetime income. The income rider

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is the lifetime income side. Draw a line down a blank sheet of paper. This side's the index side,

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which we don't care about. This side's the lifetime income stream, which we do care about,

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but you can't just buy that. It has to ride—income rider—on top of the policy. So,

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what's the best rate for those lifetime income products? SPIAs, DIAs, QLACs, income riders.

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It's the payout. Okay. And specifically, there's a number that's attached to that payout,

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you know. So, if you took the number attached, 5.2, and multiplied it—I'm just making it up—and

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multiply it by the total, that's going to give you the monthly income stream.

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You can figure it that way. But for me, lifetime income is all about monthly income stream. Yes,

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you can set it up quarterly, semiannual, or annual, but 99.9% of the people out there

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like getting their Social Security checks, which is your other annuity that you own,

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like getting that every month. They set up their annuity payments for monthly as well.

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So, the best fixed rate really comes down to what type of annuity that you're talking about.

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Now, index annuities is going to throw a little bit of a wrench into this fixed-rate question

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engine because, you know, there is a fixed rate inside of an index annuity, but it's not

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competitive to a MYGA because the companies want you to choose these cap spreads and participation

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rates and all of these hopes and dreams and unicorns chasing the butterflies. Okay. So,

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index annuities right now, in their current form, I think they're going to change here pretty soon

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because just the demand for them to change is palpable because people would really like

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something to work over there like it's being pitched, but it's not what's being pitched. So,

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when I say buy an annuity for what it will do, not what it might do—contractual guarantees only—if

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you said, Stan, I don't care what you say, I want to buy an indexed annuity,

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contractual guarantees only. Then you choose what they call the declared rate,

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which is a fixed rate, and it's not competitive because they want you to choose these whiz-bang

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formulas of caps, spreads, and participation rates and combinations of all of that. Okay?

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So, there's no best fixed rate. I always get asked this question, "Hey, Stan, what's the

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best annuity out there, son? Just tell—just cut to the chase and give me the best one." Well,

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anybody that answers that question with one annuity is a sociopath. Okay?

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Or they're just stupid, or a combination of the two. I've seen that too.

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The answer to that question, which is what's the best annuity out there, son? It's the one

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that provides the highest contractual guarantee for your specific situation. When you answer the

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two questions: what do—what do I want the money to contractually do? And when do I want those

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contractual guarantees to start? Key words are contractual. Any type of hypothetical,

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theoretical, or backtested numbers are a joke, are a joke. And that—I've not seen in my career,

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top agent in the country, I've never seen a backtested or projected number scenario come true.

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Now, think about that for a second. So everybody out there selling index annuities

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and these other products that market upside, no downside, all that stuff, they're selling you on,

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well, if you'd owned it 10 years ago, well, sir, look at the project... None of that's ever come true,

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ever, never. And if there's anyone in the industry that wants to debate me on that, bring it,

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bring it on, bring it on. Be positive. Don't yell. Don't call me names because that hurts me,

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you know. Bring it, whatever. If you want to be mad, you be mad, you know,

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because facts are facts, and the annuity industry needs to move away from the hopes and the dreams

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and go and run straight toward the contractual realities. If the annuity industry would just

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get rid of the hopes and dreams and focus on the contractual realities, the industry would triple.

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But no, no, no, no. We got to sell the hopes and dreams. I've yet to figure that out. If

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I was annuities for the day, that's what would happen, and you'd see an unbelievable change.

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Now, with that being said, and the way that I look at annuities, they're commodity products.

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There's not one carrier that's better than the other. So, if anyone's out there going, "Uh,

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you know, this annuity, I've done the research, son. It's the best one out there." No, no, no,

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no. It's the one that they've learned how to do the paperwork on, and that's all they're selling.

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Or it's the one that pays the most commission, or it's the one that's got the biggest upfront bonus,

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which is candy for the stupid. What's the best rate on a fixed annuity? It's really what's the

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best rate on a fixed annuity solving for this specific thing that I need solved for me

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or me and the spouse or me and the family. You can't just stop and—what's the best fixed rate.

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You have to continue the sentence: for this specific contractual guarantee.

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And then you can either schedule a call with us, go to my site at theannuityman.com, or you can

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run quotes to your heart's content and find it out using our proprietary calculators where, when you

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run a quote, we show you pretty much every quote scenario. We don't allow you to go down the rabbit

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hole because we show you the rabbit hole, okay? Of how it's priced, and you can see it. All right.

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So, this question is an interesting question because there's myriads of ways to answer it,

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but it's a teachable moment to say, get specific with your questions with annuities.

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Get specific with the solutions you're trying to solve for and the goals you're trying to solve

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for. Don't just come to us and say, "Well, I'm just looking for a reasonable rate of return,

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son." That's dumb. Okay? That's not being smart, and that's opening yourself up to a bad sales

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pitch of which you're going to buy the dreams and not the contractual realities. I'd rather you say,

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"I want joint life income, and I want it to start three and a half years from now, and I want that

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joint life income to be $525." Now you're talking. Now you're talking. Instead of what would be

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the income in the future? Future. Future. What are you talking about? Drill down. Get granular.

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Okay, you can do that on my site. You can run the quotes to your heart's content,

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or you can email me. Heck, email me. I'll run the quotes for you [email protected].

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Okay, but get specific. Don't ask these broad questions. Annuities are contracts

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that can be customized. Do me one last favor. Above my head, you'll see a

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spinning clock counting down, and there is a video that I did about contractual guarantees,

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why that I'm the pioneer of the contractual guarantees-only space. There's some people

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starting to follow me, and some actually are literally trying to copy the site.

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I mean, like, copy the site, which is sad. But it's good that they are buying into what I have

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been pushing and selling and trying to convince the public that this is the way to do it. Okay.

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So watch that. When I say push and sell, I'm pushing and selling the concept. There's not a

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product that we push and sell. It's the concept of contractual guarantees only. I'm a

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pound-the-table guy for that one. So, all right. All right. Clear crystal. See you next time.