What Annuities Can Do for Retirees That Traditional Fixed Income Can't

As Lau pointed out, traditional single premium immediate annuities today make up just a fraction of all annual annuity sales, generating some $6 billion in sales in 2021 out of $255 billion in total placements.

Registered index-linked annuities, on the other hand, clocked $39 billion in sales in 2021, a whopping 62% jump over 2020. According to the panel, RILAs are predicted to experience continued growth as investors seek solutions offering a balance of protection and growth.

Other annuity categories to study include deferred income annuities, fixed indexed annuities, variable annuities and others.

“Advisors need to understand that annuities are probably the most diverse product type that exists in financial services,” Blanchett said. “This is why I find it so problematic when I speak with advisors and they tell me they ‘just don’t use annuities.’ That is such a counterproductive perspective.”

The Efficiency of Annuities

According to the trio, one of the most frequently overlooked facts about annuities is that they can generate income more efficiently than a traditional fixed income portfolio. This is because of the mortality crediting and risk pooling that is built into annuity products — features a fixed income portfolio simply cannot deliver.

According to Lau, depending on the circumstances at the time, a given client can gain between 10% and 40% more efficiency in funding retirement income via an annuity versus a traditional fixed income portfolio. He noted that this excess income-generating efficiency built into annuities is well understood and appreciated by academics and insurers — but not by advisors.

“Look, annuities are not controversial at all among people who study the income topic for a living,” Lau said. “They are controversial, generally speaking, because of assumptions and misunderstandings about the compensation that is tied to annuities — or used to be tied to annuities.”

In the panel’s experience, the emergence of commission-free annuities and scalable platforms to distribute them has completely changed the annuity landscape for fiduciary financial advisors. Another key factor is the emergence of annuity solutions that leverage “income riders” in the place of true annuitization.

“In today’s annuity marketplace, many of the products are designed not as true annuities but rather as vehicles that can continue to support accumulation and in which the investor retains the ability to access their principal,” Blanchett noted. “The benefit of this approach is that the client doesn’t lose control of the assets or completely lose out on their principal if they die early.”

An annuity solution designed this way, Lau explained, will see the principal slowly depleted over time as income payments go out to the investor. As the person ages and continues to draw income, the principal balance will eventually fall to zero, but the individual will nonetheless continue to draw income from the annuity. This is yet another way, the panel agreed, that annuities can outshine a traditional fixed income approach as the basis of retirement income.

“When we are able to coach our clients through this picture, they start to understand this efficiency argument and they really lean into annuities,” Stone said. “They see annuities as a means of releasing pressure on the other parts of their overall portfolio, which actually lets them take more investment risk in a lot of cases, because they know their income floor is secured.”