Income Rider Owner's Manual

Since the market volatility events in 2008, Income Riders dominate most annuity sales pitches and have pretty much sucked the oxygen out of the annuity room. Unfortunately, too many Income Riders are purchased under the false belief that the typical high guaranteed growth percentage is actual yield... which it is not. In a perfect and transparent annuity sales world (one can dream), Income Riders would be fully explained by the agent and completely understood by the consumer for what these attached benefits to an annuity were designed to do. Income Riders do work, and contractually solve for future income needs, but they are too often sold as a “too good to be true” part of an annuity sales pitch. Target date income planning, or what I call “Income Later” is a strategy which utilizes Income Riders for their contractually guaranteed benefits, not for hypothetical possibilities. Hopefully, this Income Rider Owner’s Manual will help people buy the contractual realities, instead of the annuity sales dream.