You can surmount the financial challenges that characterize retirement period if you take time to make the right investment while you’re still in active service. Annuity for retirement is one of the best investments you can make in order to safeguard your future retirement. It’s a good insurance policy that ensures you have some cash to spend when you finally retire from active services.
There are two basic categories of annuity for retirement. They include Fixed and Variable Annuities. In this write-up, the focus is on fixed annuity. You need to know exactly what it is and how you can benefit a lot from it.
Simply put, Fixed Annuity is a kind of contract you have with a reliable insurance company. It’s all about giving the insurance company your money to manage for you. The company pays you a guaranteed return from the investment as well.
The fixed annuity as a category of annuity for retirement can also be deferred or immediate. Let’s examine them.
Deferred fixed annuity
With this kind of annuity, you’ll be receiving a guaranteed amount of interest which will keep on accumulating in the annuity contract you signed with the insurance company. In most cases, the interest rate involved is tax deferred. You’ll not need to pay any income take until you make your withdrawals.
Oftentimes, deferred fixed annuity as a kind of annuity for retirement can have very high surrender charges. This is exactly the downside of it. The surrender charges may be in place to stop you from making cash withdrawals for a specified period of 5 to 10 years or even more than that.
Again, a deferred fixed annuity may give you the opportunity of having up to 10% of the contract value every year without any need of paying any kind of surrender charge.
This kind of fixed annuity is a type of annuity for retirement that allows you to exchange your lump sum of money for a guaranteed stream of income coming from the insurance company you’re dealing with. There’s no change once the fixed annuity payment begins. The increase in inflation doesn’t affect it in any way.
Meanwhile, it’s important you know that once the annuity payments begin to materialize, you no longer have access to the principal cash. You only have access to the income that accrues from it as may be promised by the insurance company you’re dealing with.
Again, you need to choose terms of payment once you’ve made up your mind to engage in any kind of annuity for retirement. As you’re trading your lump sum for a guaranteed stream of income, you have to do it according to specified payment terms. It’s always very advisable to compare fixed annuity with other kinds of annuity for retirement before you agree to invest your money. This gives you enough room to make the right decision. If you’re confused about the kind of annuity to choose, you can engage a good financial adviser to help you out.