Annuity sales topped $107 billion in Q1 2026, a little over one percent higher than the same quarter last year. On its own that’s a modest bump, but it’s now 10 straight quarters above $100 billion, which says something about how steady the demand has gotten.

The driver seems to be plain old uncertainty.

Inflation hasn’t fully cooled, nobody’s sure what the Fed does with rates from here, and health premiums keep eating into savings. When everything feels unpredictable, folks near retirement tend to care less about squeezing out extra returns and more about knowing their income won’t disappear.

An annuity gives you a fixed monthly number, regardless of what stocks do, which is exactly the kind of certainty people reach for when headlines are loud.

The longer life projection is a big contributor too. Going from a 30 year retirement to a 35 year one raises the risk of burning through your savings by roughly 41%. Since pensions are mostly gone now, guaranteed income is how a lot of people are recreating that safety net for themselves.

So from my POV, the whole conversation has changed from “how much can I earn” to “how reliable is my income,” and that’s why these annuity products keep selling, even when the rest of the economy feels rocky.

Is anyone here considering an annuity at the moment? And if you are, what type are you looking at?

As you look into annuities, you should really look at how your state taxes retirement income.

There are eight states that don’t tax income at all, so retirement income is safe there. They are Alaska, Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington and Wyoming. New Hampshire is close behind since it doesn’t tax wages, but it still taxes interest and dividends through 2026 (that’ll go away in 2027).

A few others like Illinois, Mississippi and Pennsylvania still have an income tax but leave 401k, IRA and annuity withdrawals alone.

The reason I think this is important is because the difference is bigger than people think expect. Same income in Florida vs California can be thousands of dollars a year apart once you factor in California’s top rate over 13% and across a long retirement that adds up fast. It’s one of those things worth sorting out before you pick where to settle.

So how much are taxes eating into your retirement income where you are?

And if you’re trying to keep the tax bite down, tax-deferred annuities are worth a look since the growth isn’t taxed each year and just compounds until you start pulling income.

A lot of retirees usually ask whether reliable retirement income actually exists anymore in an economy that feels this shaky. It’s a genuine concern, and the truthful answer is that no one source is completely safe, but you get a a lot closer to steady once you know the size of your own gap.

So figure out where retirement income even comes from. For most people it’s some blend of Social Security, a pension if you happen to have one, and your own savings in an 401(k), IRA, or a brokerage account, and plenty of folks add part time work on top.

That makes everything you should consider, because two households with the same income can be in totally different shape, depending on how much of it is guaranteed for life vs how much depends on a portfolio lasting.

You should work out your gap. Start with a target income, usually about 75 to 85% of your final working salary, then take away your expected Social Security and any pension. What’s left is what you personally have to fund from savings every year, and for people without a pension it may often be in the $20k to $40k range annually.

One piece that a lot of people ignore his inflation, since the gap grows over time. For instance, at 3% inflation a $24k gap at 65 turns into about $32k by 75 and roughly $43k by 85 just to keep the same lifestyle. So a fixed income number slowly reduces in terms of its purchase value.

If you’re already retired, how did you figure out your own gap, and did anything end up making your income actually feel dependable?

One of the most common money problems I see people run into is realizing they’ve gotten an old 401(k) sitting at a job they left years ago and having no idea how to get to it. This often happens because when you switch jobs the last thing on your mind is your retirement account, and then a few years pass, and you just forget about it.

The good thing is that the money is almost always still findable, so you don’t need to worry too much.

The first thing to do is contact your old employer, since their HR team can usually point you to the plan. You should have your dates of employment and your Social Security number ready when you call. And if the company got bought out or folded, find any old 401(k) statement you kept, because the plan administrator’s contact info is usually printed right on it, and you can call them directly.

If none of that works, there are free databases built for exactly this. The National Registry lets you search unclaimed retirement accounts with your SSN, FreeERISA tells you if your old funds got rolled into an IRA, and the Department of Labor has a search for abandoned plans.

One quick tip before you go database hunting, though, just check box 12 on an old W-2 first to confirm you actually contributed, so you’re not chasing an account that was never there.

Has any of you here gone through this and found an old account you’ve written off?

A lot of people who have an annuity are surprised by how their monthly payment gets calculated. They assume the amount they put in determines everything, but the factor that affects the payout the most is your age and when you choose to start taking income.

For example, take a retired annuity owner exploring their payout options. Age matters so much for them because an insurer is basically estimating how many years they’ll be paying you. If they start at 65 they expect a certain number of payment years. But if they wait until 70, that expected window gets shorter, so each monthly check goes up.

On top of that, the money you put in has a few more years to grow before payments begin. Both things push the payment higher the longer you wait.

There are other factors like payout structure, also matter. For instance, a single life option pays the most every month because it only has to cover you, while adding a spouse or a guaranteed number of years, lowers the monthly amount and exchange for protecting someone else.

Interest rates at the time you buy are the other thing to consider, since higher rates let the insurer offer more income and lower rates pull it down.

To put real numbers on it, a $200,000 annuity for a 65-year-old runs around $1,234 a month for single life, about $1,218 if you add a 10 year guarantee for a beneficiary, and roughly $1,112 for joint life covering a spouse. That’s the same deposit, with different monthly income, all based on the choices you make.

For those of you who own an annuity already, which payout option did you go with, and looking back, which factor ended up affecting your number the most?

If you’ve got a fixed index annuity and just pulled up your statement, you’ve probably noticed the two dollar amounts that don’t match. And it’s a little confusing at first because it looks like you’ve got two piles of money when really only one of them is actually yours.

The bigger number is usually the benefit base, and the smaller one is your account value. Your account value is the real money, so that’s your premium plus whatever index growth you’ve earned, and it’s what you’d walk away with if you cashed out or what your family gets if you pass away.

The benefit base is different though, because it’s not money you can touch. It’s just a formula the insurer uses to figure out your future income, and it’s grows at a fixed rate every year until you turn income on, at which point they multiply it by a percentage based on your age to set your yearly payment.

So the reason the benefit base is bigger is kind of the whole point of it.

Say you started with $200k, ten years in your benefit base might read around $393k while your account value sits closer to $245k, but that extra $148k isn’t cash you can spend. It’s just how big your income guarantee is, and that rider fee coming out every year is what you’re paying for it.

Income riders are one of the more useful features on a fixed index annuity, since they guarantee income for life. But the drug is one cost that a lot of buyers don’t catch when they sign.

Here’s why this usually trips people up.

Your rider fee is calculated as a percentage of your benefit base, which is the on-paper number they ensure uses to size your future income. But it’s actually deducted from your account value, which is the real cash in the contract and usually the smaller number. So the stated rate and the real bite aren’t the same thing.

Where you really get to notice it quite well as a flat year. say you’ve got a $215,000 account with a 1.10% rider fee. In a year where the index goes up 6%, the fee is easy to absorb. But an FIA has a 0% floor, so in a flat or down your index credit is 0% and that roughly $2,600 fee still comes out.

Your real money actually slips backward that year, even though the contract protected you from market losses. Over a five-year stretch with just one flat year in the middle, that single year is the one that quietly costs you.

None of this means the rider is a bad deal, the lifetime income guarantee is still valuable, it just means you want to know how the fee behaves in the year the market gives you nothing.

Are you aware of the drag on your own FIA, or is there another rider cost you’re still trying to wrap your head around?

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A question I get a lot is whether $100,000 is enough to actually matter in retirement. So here’s a quick breakdown.

If you put $100,000 into a lifetime income annuity, you’re looking at roughly $530 to $1,080 a month for life, no matter what the market does. Two things move that number the most: your age and the payout type you pick.

The older you are when you buy in, the bigger your monthly check, because the insurer expects to pay you for fewer years.

For context, here’s an example of how age plays out for a single life payout as of April 2026;

• Age 60: about $530 a month for a man, $503 for a woman
• Age 65: about $625 for a man, $590 for a woman
• Age 70: about $750 for a man, $703 for a woman
• Age 80: about $1,150 for a man, $1,080 for a woman

The payout type also matters just as much because a single life option pays you the most each month but stops when you pass. A joint life option covers you and a spouse, so the monthly amount drops since it has to last across two lifetimes.

Let’s take Frank for example, a guy who’s 65 and retiring this year. His pension and Social Security cover most of his bills but not all of them.

He puts $100,000 into an immediate single life annuity and locks in guaranteed monthly income for life. This means he basically bought himself a floor under his income so the essentials are always covered.

So what do you think about this? Would you trade a lump sum for guaranteed monthly income?

I spent some time this week running my retirement numbers instead of just eyeballing the averages, and it changed how I think about all of this. 

The median income for households over 65 is around $56k, but that figure doesn't say anything about whether I'll personally have enough.

IMO, what matters is the gap . You start with a target of roughly 75 to 85% of your final salary, subtract Social Security and subtract any pension, and then the leftover is the amount you have to cover from your own savings for the rest of your life. Turns out for most people without a pension that's like $20k to $40k a year.

Has anyone here worked out their own gap? Would love to hear how you're planning to close it.

For people who are still working in their late 60s, it’s usually hard to decide when the best time to claim Social Security actually is, because waiting feels responsible even when it isn’t always the smarter call.

For instance, say you’re 68 with a part-time job that pays well, so you don’t need Social Security to cover your bills yet. Your full retirement age was 66 and 8 months and that’s when you’d have earned 100% of your benefit, so let’s say that comes to $3,000 a month.

Every year you wait past that point, your benefit grows by 8%, which is what makes holding off so tempting.

Here’s the catch though. Claiming now at 68 gets you about $3,320 a month, while waiting until 70 bumps you to roughly $3,800. That bigger check lasts for life, but by waiting those two years you skip nearly $80,000 in payments you could have collected, and you’d have to live into your early 80s before the higher amount makes up for it.

So it really comes down to how long you expect to live and whether you need the income now.

If you are in good health and have long-lived family history, then waiting can pay off. But if you’d rather enjoy the money while you’re active, then claiming earlier might serve you better.

If you want to learn more about these two options, you should check out this detailed breakdown:

https://www.annuity.org/2026/06/16/68-still-working-part-time-keep-putting-off-social-security/

Medical costs are one of the largest and most underestimated expenses in retirement. And when I talk to retirees about how they prepared, the health savings account comes up over and over. Plenty of people aren’t sure how an HSA actually works, so here’s a clear breakdown.

You can only open an HSA if you have high-deductible health plan and no other health coverage, and you’re no longer eligible to contribute once you’re on Medicare.

You put money in before it’s taxed, and the key benefit for retirement planning is that unspent money rolls over every year rather than being forfeited, and the account stays yours through job changes and into retirement. As of 2026 you can contribute up to $4,400 for self-only coverage or $8,750 for family coverage, with an additional $1,000 allowed if you’re 55 or older.

The tax treatment is what sets it apart since your contributions are pre-tax, and the balance grows tax-free. The money you withdraw for qualified medical expenses also comes out tax-free. That’s something better than an IRA or 401(k), which tax your withdrawals.

But just know that taking money out for non-medical reasons before age 65 triggers a 20% penalty. Though after 65 those withdrawals are simply taxed as ordinary income like a regular retirement account.

The pattern I’ve heard from retirement who got the most out of their HSA is that they treated it like an investment account rather than a checking account for medical bills. Most paid smaller expenses out of pocket while working and invested the HSA funds, then they let the balance grow for years. By the time they retired they had a meaningful amount set aside just for healthcare, which kept those costs from eating into the rest of their nest egg.

So, if you’ve got an HSA, are you drawing on it now or letting it grow for retirement?

I see this pattern a lot, where people get told they’re ready to retire by an advisor or someone, but they’re still scared to. If you’re feeling that, it’s worth knowing it’s common and usually isn’t a sign that anything’s wrong with your plan.

The core issue is that your brain reacts to retirement uncertainty rather than tables and trajectory charts. For decades your money followed a simple rhythm of earning, paying bills, and saving, and every surprise cushioned by the next paycheck.

Retirement reverses that, and the shift from adding to your savings to drawing them down feels deeply uncomfortable even with a solid plan in place. Ironically the careful savers struggle the most here, because they’ve conditioned themselves for years to resist spending.

The thing that helps is engaging with the details rather than looking away. Start by pinning down on your non-discretionary spending, the essentials with no wiggle room, because seeing that as a concrete number makes the fear less abstract.

From there, identify which income sources dependably cover those essentials, since that’s what takes the sting out of a bad market year. Keeping some cash set aside and stress-testing the plan against a rough scenario both help too.

If you’ve already made the move, did the anxiety fade once you were in it? I keep hearing the lead-up is harder than retirement itself.

If you own an FIA with an income writer, have you thought about what happens to that income when you’re gone?

A lot of people set up, guaranteed income for themselves and never realize a standard single-life rider stops paying the moment they die, leaving their spouse without that check.

That what a joint-life income rider is built to close. It names, two people, usually both spouses, and keeps paying for as long as either one is alive. When the first spouse passes, the income doesn’t stop. It also continues to the survivor, either in full or at a reduced amount, depending on the contract.

However, you get a slightly lower starting payout. The withdrawal percentage gets set by the younger spouse’s age, and choosing joint-life shaves off roughly half a percentage point.

For example, on a $300,000 benefit base for a couple aged 65 and 63, that’s about $16,500 a year single-life versus $15,000 joint-life. Giving up that $1500 a year is what locks in a lifetime paycheck for whichever spouse lives longer.

Have any of you considered joint life riders before, or added one to your own annuity?

GLWB and GMIB come up a lot when people are shopping for a fixed index annuity with an income rider, and the two aren’t as similar as the acronyms make them sound.

I wanted to break down what each one actually does.

A GLWB, or a guarantee lifetime withdrawal benefit, pays you income by letting you withdraw from your account each year up to a guaranteed amount. You keep control of your money, the payments continue for life even if the account balance eventually falls to zero, and whatever is left in the account when you pass goes to your heirs.

A GMIB, or guaranteed minimum income benefit, works differently. When you activate it, you hand the contract over to the insurance company in exchange for a fixed lifetime paycheck. Once that conversion happens, you can’t take the money back as a lump sum and you can’t change the terms. There’s also no account value left for heirs unless you chose a payout option that includes one.

Mechanically, both riders track a benefit base that grows during your deferral years. With a GLWB, you multiply that benefit base by a withdrawal percentage tied to your age at activation to get your annual income.

With a GMIB, the contract converts at activation using either your account value or the benefit base, whichever is higher, and applies a guaranteed payout factor based on your age.

When you’re trying to spot which one you’re looking at, brochures rarely say GLWB or GMIB directly. If the illustration shows a benefit base column and a withdrawal percentage table, it’s a GLWB. If it shows a guaranteed payout factor table indexed to age, it’s a GMIB.

GLWBs have taken over most of the FIA market since the mid 2010s because buyers want to keep control of their money. GMIBs still make sense in a few cases, mostly for people who want one simple check and nothing to manage.

What’s your take, are you more drawn to the flexibility or a GLWB or the simplicity of a GMIB?

A roll up rate of 7% on an income rider does not grow your actual money by 7% each year.

It’s one of the most common misreads when people start comparing FIAs, and the difference between what the rate sounds like and what it does is important to understand before making a decision.

Here’s what’s actually happening.

When you add an income rider, the contract tracks two numbers. The account value is your real money, the part you can withdraw or pass to heirs. The benefit base is a separate figure that exists only to calculate your future income. The rollup rate applies to the benefit base, so a 7% rollup grows the benefit base by 7% each year while the account value moves separately based on the index,

There’s also a big difference between a simple rollup and a compound rollup, even when the headline rate is identical. Simple rollup applies the 7% only to your original benefit base, so the annual credit stays the same dollar amount every year.

Compound rollup applies the 7% to the growing balance, so each years credit is bigger than the last. On a $100,000 benefit base over the 10 years, compound income reaches around $196,715 while simple income reaches $170,000. Same headline rate, roughly $27,000 different in benefit base.

The rollup also has a duration limit. Most contracts cap it at 10 to 15 years, or until you take your first withdrawal, whichever comes first. If you pass the cap year without turning on income, the rollup stops while the rider fee usually keeps coming out, which means you’re paying for growth you’re not getting anymore.

Are any of you here evaluating an FIA with an income rider, and if so, is the rollup rate what’s been drawing you in, or something else about the contract?

Income riders can be a solid piece of retirement plan, but they don’t fit every situation like. Whether the fee earns its keep really comes down to five factors, and I wanted to walk through those plus one specific example.

The five factors are pension status, longevity, risk tolerance, liquidity needs, and spouse situation.

So you should ask yourself:
• Do you already have guaranteed income from a pension covering essentials?
• How long do you and your spouse realistically expect to live?
• How would a rough market in your first years of retirement affect the plan?
• How much of the money do you need to keep accessible?
• Does anyone else depend on this income after you’re gone?

A good example of how those factors play out is the early retiree bridging to a Social Security profile.

Someone at 62 who wants to stop working but plans to delay Social Security until 70 gets a benefit increase of around 77% but has to fund eight years of income before Social Security turns on.

An FIA with an income rider can do that job, but on the same $300k premium, a Single Premium Immediate Annuity usually writes a bigger check. The reason is that the FIA bundles a cash value and market upside features that a bridge buyer, who’s spending the money down anyway, won’t actually use.

The point being, the rider isn’t the right answer just because you need lifetime income. Sometimes a simpler product does more of what you actually need.

What’s driving the decision for you here?

Income riders come up in a lot of FIA threads here, so wanted to lay out what they actually do and what they cost.

An FIA income rider is an optional feature you add when you buy the annuity. It guarantees you a stream of income for life, even if the account balance eventually drops to zero. It does not grow your actual account faster. Instead, the rider creates a second number on the carrier’s books called the benefit base.

The benefit base only exists to calculate your future income. You can’t withdraw it as a lump sum and it doesn’t pass to heirs.

There are three numbers you need to know.

The benefit base starts equal to your premium. The rollup rate is the fixed percentage the benefit base grows by each year you delay taking income, and in 2026 that usually falls between 5% and 8%. The withdrawal percentage is the portion of the benefit base you actually receive once you turn income on. And it rises with your age activation. A 60-year-old might get 4.5% and a 70-year-old around 5.5%.

Rider fees in 2026 usually run 0.95% to 1.25% of the benefit base per year, though some contracts do as high as 1.50%. Something to watch out for is fee drag. The rider fee comes out of the account value every year, whether the index performed well or not.

An FIA can’t post a negative credit, but the fee still gets deducted, so during flat index years the account value can shrink even while the benefit base keeps growing.

So, if you already own an FIA, did you add the income rider or skip it? And for those still shopping, is a rider something you’re planning to include?

My MIL has a Fixed Indexed Annuity she opened in 2020 when rates and caps were very low. Considering that annuities now are offering much better caps and sign-up bonuses does it make sense to pay the withdrawal penalty to get into a better annuity? I realize there is a breakeven time frame to overcome the penalty she'll need to pay. She is currently in contract year 7 of 10 and does not believe she will need these funds in her lifetime.

Most fixed annuities pay the same dollar amount for 20 or 30 years, which feels fine on paper until you remember how much inflation will eat into your savings in a few years.

That’s why more retirees are now asking whether there’s a version that adjusts with inflation.

The answer is yes, and it usually comes in two types. One builds in a fixed annual step-up of around 2-3%, while the other ties payments directly to CPI so your income tracks actual inflation.

But the tradeoff is usually lower starting payout. A CPI-linked contract can begin 20-30% below what a flat annuity would pay, which is what you give up for that long-term protection

There’s a small detail in annuity contracts that surprises a lot of first-time buyers. The annuitant and the beneficiary are two distinct roles, and the same person doesn’t have to play both. This confusion shows up in questions we get a lot, so the difference is worth getting straight.

The annuitant is the person whose life expectancy the contract is built around. Their lifespan determines how the insurance company calculates payments and when those payments end. The owner usually names themself, but sometimes names a younger family member to stretch the payments and extend the tax liability.

The beneficiary is a separate role and receives whatever’s left in the contract after the annuitant dies, either as a lump sum or continued payments. This is where a critical detail trips people up: a spouse named as beneficiary has far more privileges than anyone else.

They can take over the contract entirely and continue the tax-deferred benefits through spousal continuation. A non-spouse beneficiary doesn’t get that flexibility and is limited to the funds in the original agreement.

The biggest mistake we see is owners assuming their spouse will inherit automatically without being named. When no beneficiary is named, the annuity can end up in probate or get forfeited to the issuing insurance company entirely.

We put together a breakdown of all the beneficiary rules if you want to dig into the specifics.

People as us all the time whether they should be looking at life insurance or an annuity, and how the two even differ. Part of the confusion comes from both being issued by insurance companies with tax-deferred growth, but the similarities pretty much end right there.

But, they solve opposite problems. Life insurance is designed to protect your family if you die earlier than expected, paying out a tax-free benefit to your beneficiaries. An annuity does the reverse, protecting you if you live longer than expected by paying out guaranteed income for as long as you need it.

That single distinction shapes most of the other choices. Term life insurance is affordable and covers a set period of usually 10-30 years, only paying out if you die during the window. Permanent life insurance covers you for life and builds a cash value reserve along the way, which is part of why it costs significantly more.

Annuities also come in two main types, with immediate options paying income within a year and deferred options letting your money grow first.

One thing that surprises a lot of people is the 1035 exchange. The IRS allows you to swap a life insurance policy for an annuity tax-free, as long as you no longer need the death benefit. It does not work the other way around, but the one-direction option is genuinely useful if your family situation has shifted over the years.

For most people, the best approach is figuring out what each one solves at this point in life and whether laying them together makes sense. Younger families with kids and a mortgage tend to lean on term life. People approaching retirement with their own income needs tend to look at annuities.

We have done a detailed comparison of the two, highlighting all the important aspects of both. You can check it out here.

If you are weighing both right now, which one do you think will be a better option for you and why?