Eating from the Tree of Investments: Annuities, good or bad?

In the bible, Eve had a choice: eat from tree of knowledge or eat from tree of life. While we all know how the story goes, the interesting thing is, if she took from tree of life, she would have lived forever. As we finish well, we have to think about how our money is going to last forever.

Hans tells Robby that the biggest fear clients come in with is the fear of running out of money and becoming dependent on their family or the state. They need their money to last even when they stop working. So how can they invest their money to do this? One way to do this is annuities.

Annuities do get a lot of bad press, and some degree of this is true, but only because people do not understand the product they are purchasing or get sold the wrong annuity for their situation.

At Cardinal, Hans and his team sells for 30+ companies who offer annuities, and have access to over 1,000 different contracts for their customers.

Annuities are a product you can put money into and then have guaranteed payments for life once you turn it on. It works similar to a Social Security check, and is insuring against you basically living too long.

Hans talks about a client who he recently sold an annuity to. First, Cardinal figured out how much money she needed to leave out to live on for the next few years; you do not want to put every dime you have into this product. Then, they waited about 8 years for her to run out of this money. Once that happened, the client turned the annuity on. Now, she has a check coming to her every month for the rest of her life. Even if the policy does not have any cash value left, if she is still living, she still gets a check. If she dies before using the cash value, the remaining will go to her son.

Hans explains this Fixed Index Annuity.  While there are fees for this annuity, which Hans goes over, he discusses the return you can get on these.  The guarantee in the name means that the worst return you will ever get is zero, meaning you will not lose money. You do get to participate in the upside returns without participating in the downside, which is one reason there is fees.

All this will is confusing, and you really need to find someone you trust to walk through the options. You want to make sure this person is a fiduciary, meaning they have your best interest in  mind.

Don’t forget to get your copy of “The Complete Cardinal Guide to Planning for and Living in Retirement” on Amazon or on CardinalGuide.com for free!

You can contact Hans and Cardinal by emailing hans@cardinalguide.com or calling 919-535-8261. Learn more at CardinalGuide.com.