Payout Annuity Quotes

People who buy annuities, it turns out, live longer than people who don’t, and not because the people who buy annuities are healthier to start with. The evidence suggests that an annuity’s steady payout provides a little extra incentive to keep chugging along.

Well, buying an annuity means you give the insurance company a lump sum—say, $500,000 at age 60—and in return you get a guaranteed monthly payout (for example, $2,400 each month) for the rest of your life, however long that happens to be. Like all insurance, annuities aren’t free—insurance companies have to make money to stay in business!—but if your goal is to maximize the life experiences you can buy with the money you’ve earned, they’re a very sensible solution. That’s partly because, even after the insurance company’s fees, your monthly payouts amount to more than you would probably be willing to pay yourself if you wanted to make sure you didn’t outlive your money. For example, one popular rule of thumb for retirement spending is the “4 percent rule,” whereby you withdraw 4 percent from your savings each year of retirement. Well, with annuities, your annual payouts will probably amount to more than 4 percent of what you put into the annuity—and, unlike the 4 percent withdrawals, those payouts are guaranteed to continue for the rest of your life.