Annuities in Retirement: Benefits, Costs, and Alternatives
Retirement planning has a quiet obsession with one question: what happens when money outlasts your patience? Many retirees can handle market swings, but what they struggle with is sequence risk, the unpleasant scenario where you retire right before a downturn. Annuities are one of the few products designed specifically for that stress, turning a lump sum into a stream of payments. For some people, that stream becomes a foundation. For others, it becomes an expensive constra