Rob Burgess at ThinkAdvisor covered a study finding that retirees with annuities tend to live longer, and asked me whether that matches what I see. It does.
I have spent two decades watching the annuity conversation get mangled by bad marketing on one side and fear on the other. This study cuts through all of it. The clients in my practice who carry guaranteed lifetime income sleep differently than the ones riding a portfolio through every correction.
The mechanism is not mysterious. Instead of focusing on what the market did today, clients with a guaranteed floor are able to focus on what truly matters to them: their children, grandchildren, health, philanthropy and personal experiences. We also see many of these clients invest more intentionally in their health and quality of life because they feel financially secure about the future.
The specific pattern I described: the clients I see spending on gym memberships, physical therapy and specialist appointments without hesitation tend to be the ones who can see income on the calendar. The ones watching a portfolio balance tick down in a bear market often delay those expenses. That is where the health connection runs through, not just anxiety in the abstract. Deferred care compounds like deferred maintenance.
None of this makes an annuity right for everyone, and the product has to be the right one at the right price. But the value of income you cannot outlive is not only financial. The study put a number on something I had been observing across a couple hundred client relationships.
Read the full article at ThinkAdvisor →
